


Birds in the Heather Flock Together

by WittyChemist



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: But still watching your parents die in front of you is pretty traumatic, Characters will probably be slightly ooc but I'm doing my best to keep them in character, Dick Grayson has amnesia, Dick Grayson has powers, Dick Grayson is the most adorable tiny child, Gen, Harley Quinn accidentally becomes a mother, It gets better with the help of licensed psychiatrist Dr. Quinzel, Jason Todd is a feral street child and we love him, Poison Ivy accidentally becomes a mother, Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn co-mother Dick Grayson, Selina Kyle is basically their aunt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:34:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 24,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23307625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WittyChemist/pseuds/WittyChemist
Summary: One stormy night in late September, Poison Ivy returns from her most recent breakout from prison to her hideout--only to find a young boy dying in her green house. In a roundabout way, it was kind of her fault--she couldn't just kick him out before he healed up. He could stay a few days and then she'd drop him off with the police (Harley could've told her even before they laid eyes on the adorable kid that there was a fat chance of that actually happening).ORIn a universe where various events happened slightly differently, the feared villainesses of Gotham, Pamela Isley and Harleen Quinzel, end up accidentally adopting several boys.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Harley Quinn, Dick Grayson & Poison Ivy, Poison Ivy & Harley Quinn
Comments: 38
Kudos: 206





	1. A hundred bad days make a hundred good stories

Pamela Isley didn’t expect to find anything more than her lovely plants when she entered her greenhouse on the outskirts of Gotham one stormy night in September. However, Gotham was Gotham, and as such, certain precautions were required to keep her babies safe when she was absent—from both “hero” and “villain” alike.

Flipping on the lights, several of her more sentient plants shook their buds in greeting, and she responded in kind by stroking their luscious leaves. Her plants appeared well, all appropriately fertilized and watered despite her three-week stint in Arkham. She smiled, shaking her head. Harley had asked her a few months prior how she managed to keep all her plants thriving, and Ivy had eagerly jumped into an explanation of the care of her babies, not expecting Harley to remember all she said. Despite the slightly less than sane appearance she put on, at her core she was, like Ivy, a brilliant scientist.

One of her large venus fly traps that guarded her greenhouse shook what could be considered its head to get her attention, appearing agitated. “What’s wrong sweetie, are you hungry?” It shook again, and motioned towards the back of the greenhouse, where her lab and experiments were stored. That was not a good sign. Just before she had been captured by that dratted Batman, she had successfully grown a hybrid plant of her design (primarily a mixture of venus flytrap, aconite, and belladonna, among others) to maturity, and had planned to test its properties over the next several weeks.

She rushed over to her experiment, expecting to find the large plant with drooping leaves or even reduced to a shriveled stick. She did _not_ expect to find the large, dark red plant happily munching on a young boy.

“Drop him,” she commanded the plant, and was surprised when it snarled at her, dedicated to its (hopefully still alive) meal. _Oooh that will not do_. The green house around her burst to life with a simple flick of her wrist, and in an instant, all that remained of the rebellious plant were a few ruddy leaves.

The loyal plants parted for her as she rushed to the boy, carefully examining him. He was alive but unconscious, and beneath tan skin his lips were blue, his breath sputtering weakly in his chest. There were shallow puncture marks in a row along his chest and back, obviously from where the plant had grabbed him. Gently tugging the material of his clothing away from the wounds (and noting absently that the weather was already far too cold for such a small child to be walking around in nothing but a _leotard_ ), she found that the skin around them was also tinged with blue, no doubt a reaction to the poison of the plant.

Ivy quickly gathered the boy into her arms and carried him over to her bed as gently as she could, and ran back to her lab to begin working on an antidote as her plants tucked him in. “Come to me if his condition changes!” she yelled over her shoulder. She didn’t need to look at her plants to know they had understood.

* * *

While she hastily tried to concoct an antidote for the boy, Ivy’s mind reeled with questions. Who was he, and how on earth had he managed to get into her lab? What if he was a spy for the Batman? Her actions slowed for a millisecond before returning to the task at hand, shaking the thought from her head. While she didn’t see eye to eye with Batman on the best of days, she highly doubted he would risk the life of an innocent boy like this, and either way, she would still be determined to save him, whoever he was. Despite what some people thought of her and her methods of saving nature, Pamela Isley was no monster.

She worked quickly, occasionally checking in on the boy. He hadn’t woken yet, and was beginning to develop a fever. He would need the antidote soon if he were to pull through. Finally, after a little over two hours of work, she had an antidote. Hopefully it would work.

Ivy filled a syringe with the concoction and rushed to the bedside. It was difficult to find the vein in the boy’s elbow under his flushed skin (it certainly didn’t help that her medical background was more geared to toxicology rather than human biology). After some taping of the skin, she was able to get the vein raised just enough to insert the needle and give him the injection. Ivy hadn’t even realized that she was holding her breath until she noticed the blue tinge begin to fade from the boy’s lips, and she exhaled in a large puff. He should be alright for now, but she would stay in the room with him until he awoke.

Ivy bandaged the various cuts across his torso (there might be some scarring, but it would be minimal) before taking a seat at the foot of the bed. And if anyone asked her later on, she would swear that letting the boy sleep in her bed while she slept on the floor was purely in the best interest of getting her patient well and out of her space, and absolutely not due to any concern she had for the mystery boy. None whatsoever.

* * *

“Uh, Miss? Excuse me, miss red hair lady?”

Ivy awoke with a start to a boy with bright blue eyes and messy black hair leaning over the foot of her bed with a questioning look. Patting down her own tangled red curls as she sat up and kneeled so she was level with the boy, she offered him a hesitant but warm smile.

“Hey there, sprout. How are you feeling?” He still looked a bit pale, but the fact that he was sitting up without assistance gave her great hope that the antidote had worked.

“Um, not too bad, I guess. I’m sorry, but what’s your name? I- I don’t remember how I got here. Did something happen to me?”

 _Hmmm_ , Ivy thought, _his confusion must be a side effect from either the poison or the trauma_. She noticed the boy spoke with a very slight lilt to his words, maybe the accent was French? German?

“My name is Pamela, but you can call me Ivy, everyone else does. As for how you got here, I don’t know myself. This is my home, you see, and I’m a botanist. When I got home last night, it looked like you had gotten yourself tangled up with one of my more dangerous plants and were poisoned by it. Don’t worry about the plant, I’ve disposed of it by now, and I gave you the antidote last night.” She said this all in a calm, gentle voice, and the boy nodded along, those big sapphire eyes serious. “Would you mind telling me your name? I’m sure your parents are worried sick about you.”

He furrowed his eyebrows seemingly in confusion. “My name? It’s Richard… I think I go by Dick…”

The boy, Dick, didn’t lose his look of confusion, and Ivy soon had one to match his. “What do you mean, hon? Can you not remember?”

He was silent for a moment, and eventually shook his head. “All I remember is… waking up here, a few minutes ago. Why can’t I remember? Is this from the plant poison Miss Ivy?”

She was taken aback. “I don’t believe so, there wasn’t anything that should have caused amnesia… Well, Dick, I would say we have some detective work to do. But first, you must be hungry. Would you like some tea? And maybe some toast?”

Dick’s face lit up at the prospect of food and he nodded vigorously. “Yes please!”

She smiled at the child. “You got it, sprout. You stay in bed now, you’re still recovering from the poison. I don’t want you exerting too much energy.” 

“Yes, Miss Ivy!” 

She chuckled as she left her bedroom and made for her small kitchen. Small though it may be, it had the same large windows as the rest of the greenhouse and was always filled with sunlight. At least, as much sunlight as you could find in Gotham. She made a beeline for the phone that hung from the wall, and dialed the only number she had programmed into it. The receiver picked up on the second ring. 

“Hiya, Red! How’s it goin’? Ya know, I was just thinking about you, I’m at the store and I just saw that vegan waffle mix ya love—”

“Hi Harles, that’s great, but could I ask a huge favor of you?” 

“Of course! Who do you need dead? Or do you already have a body? Cuz I’ll let you know; my hyenas can get rid of a body in ten minutes flat.” 

“I’m sure they can, but luckily there’s no bodies today. Can you come straight to my place after you leave the store? And actually, could you pick up some clothes for a…nine-year-old boy?” Ivy made a quick guess at Dick’s age; he could be older, but if he was then he was rather small for his age. At any rate, until he figured out where he belonged, he couldn’t be walking around in nothing but a leotard. “Oh, and Harles? Bring your doctor glasses.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed the first chapter of this story! It's a fic that I've had bouncing around my laptop for the better part of a year at this point, and since everything is locked down due to the coronavirus, I figure there's no time like the present to try posting it. If you liked it would be great if you could leave a kudos or a comment! I'll be trying to update weekly. Thanks again, and stay healthy!


	2. Home, let me come home, home is when ever I'm with you

Harley’s motorcycle pulled in a little over an hour later. She walked into the kitchen with several bags of groceries in her arms and her dachshund Nathan trotting along happily behind her. Thankfully she was dressed in more comfortable clothing than her usual villain garb, in a loose sweatshirt and jeans, with her hair done in messy twin buns; Ivy didn’t want to inadvertently scare Dick with the bad reputations the two ladies’ alter egos’ had gained.

“Hey there, Ives! I gotcha the goods, so what’s so important that ya needed me to rush over here? Not that I mind, of course. It’s been _ages_ since we had a movie day.”

“Maybe some other time, Harley.” Ivy explained the situation and Harley’s eyes got round at the mention of the kid.

“You’ve got a _kiddo_ _here_?” she nearly squealed with delight. “I wanna see ‘im!”

“Hang on! He doesn’t remember how he got here; he doesn’t remember anything before waking up this morning. Now, that could be a side effect to the poison, but unless my biochemistry doctorate was a fraud, there is nothing that should have caused amnesia. So he’s either lying about not remembering, and I don’t think he is, or there’s something else going on. That’s why I wanted you to come. Do you think you could dust off some of your psychologist magic and see what’s going on with him?”

Seeing the concern on her best friend’s face for this boy, Harley immediately shifted into psychologist mode. “Where is he?”

She was led into the bedroom where Nathan already sat in Dick’s lap, wagging his tail furiously while the boy laughed. Harley pulled up a chair to the bedside. “Hey there, kiddo, my name’s Harley, I’m Ivy’s friend. She said you’re having some trouble remembering things?” The boy nodded; his eyes wide. “Well, why don’t we see if we can jog that memory of yours? What’s the first thing you can remember?”

“Waking up this morning, in Miss Ivy’s house. She said she has lotsa cool plants and one of them got to me, but I don’t remember that. She made me toast!”

Harley smiled. “I’m sure she did, she’s a pretty nice lady. She even asked me to pick ya up some clothes from the store. That outfit you’re sportin’ doesn’t seem too good for the weather, do ya know what it’s for?”

Dick looked down at what he was wearing. The pattern on the bright red fabric tickled at the back of his memory, but try as he might, he couldn’t remember what it meant. Eventually he gave up and shook his head.

“That’s okay pumpkin, we’ll just take this a step at a time, and see what we can figure out.”

At that, Ivy left the room to give them some privacy. Harley joined her in the kitchen a half hour later.

“So what’s your diagnosis, Dr. Quinzel?”

“The kiddo—you called him Dick? Dick’s definitely got some sorta retrograde amnesia going on, my guess is that it’s trauma induced. He probably experienced somethin’ real horrible recently, and when he came in last night looking for some place warm to sleep, yer plant attackin’ was the last straw that pushed him over the edge. His mind shut down on him to protect himself, and in doin’ so, blocked out _all_ memories, not just the bad.”

“Poor kid…” Ivy’s heart broke just thinking about what Dick might have gone through; in a place like Gotham, that list was sadly extremely long. “That makes sense, unfortunately. I looked at my security tapes while you two spoke, and what I saw was a terrified, sobbing kid who somehow found himself running barefoot through the forest until he found my greenhouse. Did you find anything out about him in general? Anything that might help us figure out who he is?”

Harley sat on the kitchen table and started swinging her legs. “Well he sure is a squirrely kiddo, didn’t stop fidgeting the whole time I talked to him. I had to stop him from doing a handstand on yer bed just so he wouldn’t tear his bandages. Paired with the unitard, ya think he could have gotten away from a gymnastics studio or somethin’?”

Ivy rose an eyebrow. “In this area? Within walking distance? Once you get out of this forest it’s all warehouses and sketchiness, anyone who would have a gym for kids out here would have to be a moron.”

“Hrm. I guess that’s true. I also don’t think he’s from around here, I tried asking him about his favorite places—retrograde amnesiacs usually recall places and stuff. Didn’t say anything I recognize from around here, did say he likes the zoo though, especially the elephants.”

Ivy muddled over this information. It wasn’t much to go off of, but it was a start.

Just then, Dick exited the bathroom, freshly dressed in clean clothes. Ivy kneeled down so she was eye level with him.

“Hey there, sprout, I talked with Harley, and it sounds like until we get that memory of yours back on track, you don’t have anywhere to go. You’re welcome to stay here if you like, I have a guest bedroom that I can make up all cozy for you. Otherwise I could take you to the police and see if they could help out.” Ivy tried to keep the distaste out of her voice as she gave that option; as far as she was concerned, the Gotham Police Department consisted of corrupt individuals who were oftentimes just the same as the criminals they liked to lump her in with.

Dick didn’t seem to like that option much either, his face twisted at the mere mention of it. Interesting.

“I’d like to stay with you, if that’s okay?”

Ivy smiled and ruffled his hair while Harley hopped and clapped her hands. “Of course it’s okay sprout, otherwise I wouldn’t have offered.”

“Thank you!” Ivy was startled when the tiny child threw himself into her arms for a hug; he was much quicker than he looked, even when injured. Cautiously, she returned the hug. Harley patted him on the back.

“Don’t you worry kiddo, I bet your memory’ll start coming back in bits any day now. Welp, you know what this means!” Ivy broke the hug, raising an eyebrow at Harley. “Movie day!”

Ivy smiled down at Dick, who lit up at the suggestion. “I think that’s doable.”

* * *

Thirty minutes later found the trio sitting in the squashy old couch in front of the TV. One of the benefits of having an amnesiac child in your care was that to him, all movies were new and exciting. Luckily, Harley had a soft spot for Disney movies, and they had a plethora for Dick to choose from. He picked _Dumbo_ and threw himself in between Ivy and Harley, with Nathan curled up in his lap.

Adding to her growing list of things they had discovered about Dick, Ivy noted that the boy seemed to enjoy human contact. It was something Ivy could adjust to; she had gone far too long with most people (excluding Harley, of course) being afraid to so much as brush her skin. Which was fair, given that she could poison someone upon contact without so much as a second thought, but she also missed just getting to be physically close to people. It was nice to have someone else who wasn’t afraid to cozy up to her.

While Dick and Harley immersed themselves in the movie, Ivy worked on her laptop. She didn’t have any pre-existing blood samples from Dick to compare his current blood to, something which slightly concerned her. She was 90% certain that Dick was on the road to recovery without complications, but she just couldn’t be absolutely sure about it. If only that damn Batman hadn’t thrown her in jail, then her plants wouldn’t have gone unsupervised and they could have avoided this whole kerfuffle… well, never mind that. There was certainly someone in the world who could change the past, but she wasn’t them, and wouldn’t worry about things she couldn’t change. She already put her best efforts into changing the things she could, namely the human population’s blatant disregard for nature. And at any rate, she didn’t mind having Dick in her home; it sometimes got lonely with just her plants for company.

Back to the matter at hand, according to the comparison between the blood sample she took right after she had found Dick and the one she had taken that morning while he ate his breakfast, the levels of toxins previously coursing through his bloodstream were far lower. _Albumin, normal; creatinine, normal; at least his organs aren’t shutting down. Iron levels slightly low, but that’s to be expected._ Electrolytes were low across the board—she’d make sure lunch and dinner consisted of many fresh fruits and vegetables from her garden. _Hmmm, now this is interesting_. Lymphocyte and monocyte levels were abnormally high. A reaction from these white blood cells was not out of the question, but they generally dealt with the destruction of cells, of pathogens, and of foreign material in wounds. Why would his body think it had to prepare a wide-scale destruction response? Dick’s wounds were serious due to a poisoning, not a bacterial infection; in fact, there shouldn’t have even _been_ an immune system response. Unless the plant had picked up some bacteria while she was away?

Ivy shook her head. There were too many question and not enough research for her to answer them all today. At any rate, Dick appeared healthy and happy, enamored by the image of a flying elephant on the TV. Another question came to mind (so many questions, was it so hard for an answer to come her way once in a while?): who _was_ Dick? Opening a new document on her laptop, Ivy typed up all the info she had collected on him, anything that could help identify him.

She then typed into the search engine _Richard, 9, missing, Gotham_ , and hit enter. There wasn’t any result for a nine-year-old, but there was one for an 12-year-old. Ivy clicked the link, excited that they might figure out where Dick had come from—and immediately, her heart shattered into a million pieces. For smiling up at her, was a picture of Dick grinning in between two adults that had to be his parents, above the headline TRAGEDY STRIKES AT THE CIRCUS: ACROBATS DEAD FROM BROKEN ROPE, CHILD STILL MISSING. She read with wide eyes:

> Tragedy struck the circus Friday night in full view of an audience of several hundred, as Mary and John Grayson, the star attractions of Haly’s Circus, fell to their deaths in a catastrophic instance of equipment malfunction. The Flying Graysons, a world-famous acrobatic trio, had been preforming Friday when the rope holding one of their trapezes snapped, sending Mr. and Mrs. Grayson to their deaths and leaving their young son Richard, who was waiting for his part in the act, staring at the carnage from above. The circus was immediately shut down and authorities arrived to process the scene. At some point in this time period however, Richard Grayson left the circus tent. Witnesses reported seeing a crying child who fit Richard’s description running from the scene.
> 
> Billionaire philanthropist and Gothamite Bruce Wayne, who happened to be in attendance Friday night, gave this statement: “It’s an absolute tragedy, what happened here tonight. We should all be respectful of the situation and those affected, and trust the efforts our police force is currently making to find answers. The priority of Gotham now needs to be finding Richard, I’m sure we all know this is no place for a child to be scared and alone. I have worked with the police to set up a reward for anyone with information about Richard’s whereabouts. Please contact the Gotham Police Department if you have any information that could be useful.” Richard is 12 years old and described as tan with black hair and blue eyes, 4’ 6” and slender. The authorities are not yet ruling out this terrible accident as a homicide. Anyone with information about the crime please call—

Ivy couldn’t read any further. Her vision was strangely blurry as her eyes welled with tears. She didn’t consider herself a soft woman by any means, but one of the issues closest to her heart was fighting to protect the innocent. Even if ‘the innocent’ she usually fought to protect was nature, Dick had had his parents brutally killed before his eyes, and as a result had lost all his memories. Her tears turned to ones of anger as she thought over the last few lines of the article. _If this was done on purpose, whoever is responsible will_ pay.

Ivy was brought back to the present as Harley stretched, the credits of the movie rolling. Dick had fallen asleep in her lap, so as gently as she could, Ivy picked him up and tucked him back into her bed. He was still healing from his injuries and would be out for a bit.

“Harley?”

“What’s up, Ives?”

Her face must have told all; Harley immediately followed Ivy into the kitchen without further comment. She gestured at her laptop for Harley to read and started braiding her hair, a nervous tick Ivy had had since childhood.

After a minute of reading Harley leaned back in her chair with a heavy exhale. “Shit, this _sucks_. No wonder he lost all his memories.”

“What the fuck are we going to do, Harley? He didn’t just lose his family; he lost his entire world. How do you come back from that? _Can_ you even come back from that? Oh god, the orphanages in Gotham will chew him up and spit him out, we can’t do that to him!”

Harley put her hands on Ivy’s shoulders. “Ok, first things first, take a deep breath. This is one a’ the things I like about you the most Ives, yer damn hero complex means you just can’t sit back and let someone else do the heavy liftin’ when the world is against an underdog.”

Instead of being placated by the comment, Ivy flared with anger. A shiver went through the multitude of houseplants in the room. “Well, what would you have me do, Harley? Kick him to the street? ‘Hey Dick, sorry your parents died but I need you to skidaddle, here’s some taxi money, good luck pal!’ Not gonna happen!”

“Jeesh, ya really think I’d suggest that? Nuh-uh, he’s too adorable for this world, and I sure as hell ain’t gonna just hand ‘im over to the coppers, no way. I think we should keep him!”

Ivy was taken aback. Hesitantly, she replied, “Do you really think we’d be able to raise him well enough? I mean, we don’t have the most stable living conditions, nor are we the most stable people…”

“Speak for yourself, Red, I think between the two of us we’d be able to give anyone else a run for their money. We’d definitely do a better job than the orphanages, that’s fer sure.” Ivy snorted. “And if we’re being honest,” Harley continued, “Dick’ll have some shit he needs to deal with as he grows up. Who better to understand that than two people who’ve been doin’ that fer years?”

“Whatcha talking about?”

The new voice startled them. They looked up to see Dick poking his head around the corner.

“Dick, honey, I thought you would sleep longer. You’re still injured.”

“But sleeping’s boooor-ing, and I’m not hurt that bad. Miss Harley gave me some exercises to help me remember stuff! The sooner I start, the faster I’ll start remembering things.”

“About that, hun…” Ivy glanced to Harley in support and was met with a sad, hesitant look. It was a mark of their friendship that Ivy could read that single expression as _Careful now, don’t push him too hard._

Ivy sighed. “We found out who you are, and where you came from.” Ivy never wanted the joy that was written across Dick’s face to fade. “But Dick… oh sprout, I’m so sorry. I found out that you and your parents were in a circus act together, the Flying Graysons? One of the ropes snapped on your trapeze act and your parents fell. They died Friday night. It’s probably why you lost your memory, the news said you saw the whole thing happen. I’m so, so sorry.”

“Wh-what?” It was devastating to watch the gears turn in Dick’s head, to try to remember something, _anything_ , and turn up empty. “But—I can’t—they couldn’t—I can’t even remember them! They can’t be gone, they just can’t be, it wouldn’t be fair! They can’t be d— can’t be dea—” The boy began shaking as he sank to the floor and sobbed, agonizing, gut-wrenching cries escaping him. He wrapped his arms around his knees, hugging them into his core and looking impossibly small in that moment as he trembled. Suddenly both Ivy and Harley were there, wrapping him up in their warm, strong embrace. Dick began to cry even harder, but didn’t push them away.

The trio sat like that for long enough that the sun sank behind the horizon, and by the time it was dark Dick’s cries had softened into hiccups.

Ivy stroked his hair and waited until his hiccups had faded before she said, “Why don’t we have a bite to eat sprout, then you can get some more sleep?” He didn’t respond at first. When he did, it was muffled into her shirt. “What was that, hun? I couldn’t hear you.”

Dick lifted his head up and looked at Ivy with shining eyes. He asked in the smallest voice, “Where am I going to go, Miss Ivy? I don’t want to go to the orphanage, bad things happen to kids like me in the orphanage.”

Ivy frowned, not liking how that sounded. She looked to Harley, who simply shrugged. Ivy looked back to Dick.

His tear-stained face broke her heart. “Can I stay with you, Miss Ivy? I don’t—I don’t have a family to go back to now, I don’t…have anywhere to go.”

Nathan chose that moment to worm his way into the trio and curl up in Dick’s lap. Ivy looked from the content wiener dog, to the traumatized boy in her lap, and lastly to her best friend who was winking at her wildly as if she couldn’t catch the hint. In that moment, Poison Ivy, the notorious super villainess, protector of the wild, and bane to careless humans everywhere, made a decision.

“I see no reason for you to go to an orphanage when we have a perfectly fine little family here already.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! Thanks for reading my story! The first few chapters are gonna be a lot of bonding between our two favorite villains and Dick (which means I get to write a lot of fluff and angst :D ). If you didn’t pick up on it, I like to name each chapter after a song lyric that I think (at least loosely) applies to the chapter, whether from the lyric itself or the overall vibe of the song. Last chapter’s title was a song by the same name by AJR (I love their stuff). This chapter’s title lyric comes from the song Home by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. Thanks again, and if you’re liking the story so far, please feel free to drop a comment or a kudos!


	3. Blackbird singing in the dead of night, take these broken wings and learn to fly

The first few weeks after unofficially adopting Dick were…rocky, for lack of a better word. Not that Dick misbehaved or acted out—all the fears that most new adoptive parents might have were unfounded for Ivy; Dick was absolutely polite, did whatever he could to help out around their home. He never had outbursts either, and that was exactly the problem. After the trauma he had gone through, both Harley and Ivy expected him to have issues dealing with it, but after that first night he didn’t so much as cry. Dick kept his face carefully schooled into the blankest of masks, did exactly what was asked of him, and most significantly, never smiled. Even after only knowing the boy for a day, it was shocking how much his demeanor had changed.

The only request he had made of Ivy was that he have access to the internet, which she of course allowed, thinking maybe he could play online games or something of the sort. But instead, whenever she found him at her laptop, he was finding out all that he could of his past life, everything from pictures of his family to newspaper articles about the circus. All of this he added to a notebook Harley had gotten him for their therapy sessions, which were still happening every few days, or whenever she came over.

“He just needs time, Ives,” Harley said late one night after Ivy voiced her concerns over a glass of wine. “You know I’m not going to tell you the details of our meetings, doctor-patient confidentiality and all that, but it’s been three weeks since Dick started living with ya and started doin’ therapy with me, and I can tell ya, as his semi-legal guardian and all that, that he has made leaps and bounds of improvement since then. He’s even started remembering things on his own.”

“Really?” That gave Ivy the first hope she had had in weeks.

“Yeah, it’s jus’ small stuff, like he used to be friends with an elephant in the circus named Zitka, and his mom an’ pop started teachin’ him how to tight rope walk when he was four. Like I said, it’s little things, and honestly it may take years for him to remember everything, but he’s taking steps.”

It was in the fourth week that Ivy woke up to find Dick sitting at the kitchen table with a bowl of cereal he had made for himself. “Good morning,” he greeted, and hesitantly smiled for the first time in weeks.

She returned the smile in full. “You’re up quite early this morning, would you like some tea?”

He nodded, and within a few minutes they were sitting in comfortable silence across from one another, sipping from steaming mugs of mint tea. “I remembered something last night,” he said suddenly, staring into his mug.

“Oh?”

“It was in a dream I had. I know it could have just been a dream, but this felt… more real. I was with my parents—I must have still been pretty young, because I was just starting to learn the trapeze. I had fallen off and I wasn’t hurt, but I started crying because I was frustrated that I couldn’t get the move right. My dad came up to me and asked if I was hurt, and if I wasn’t hurt, why I was crying. I told him, and the rest of the memory is still fuzzy, but I remembered him saying this really clearly: ‘Being upset is a good reason to cry, sometimes no matter how hard you try to do something right it just ends up wrong. _But_ , even better than crying, is to take that pain, and turn it into something useful, like determination, or even joy. You just have to make the decision for yourself.’

“He had me try again, and after that it only took me a few more tries until I had it down. My point here is, that I have every right to be upset over what’s happened. And I don’t know if I will ever fully get over my parents being… gone. But so far, I’ve been trying so hard to not feel _anything_ , and I don’t think that’s right either. I should at least let myself feel that I’m sad, you know? And then I can start to move on, and remember more of the good times I had with my parents. I think they’d want me to choose to remember the good times, instead of focusing on the bad things, you know?”

Ivy set down her mug and took Dick’s hand in hers, palms warmed by the tea. “I think you’re right. Bad things come in all sorts of unfortunate ways. We can always wish that events had gone differently, or not have happened at all; but we don’t get to decide that. What we _can_ decide, is how we act moving forward. You could lock away all your emotions and try to never feel anything. You could scream and shout to the wind, asking why this happened to you. In my experience? Both are ways to deal with the pain, but you don’t really deal, do you? It’s just putting off acceptance of what has happened. And only once you’ve accepted it, can you really move on.

“Your parents just died Dick, no one is expecting you to move on immediately. Some days you might feel like you don’t want to feel anything, and other days you might feel so angry at the world that you just don’t know what to do anymore. Some days you might feel happy because you remember the good times you had. Neither I nor Harley will ever judge you for how you deal with the pain, because I can _guarantee_ you that between the two of us, we’ve tried every coping method in the book for the hardships we’ve gone through in life. No matter what you do, just make sure that you keep living your life to the fullest. From the little I know about your parents, I know that they would want you to keep moving forward. It won’t always be easy, but I can promise that Harley and I will always be there to help you.”

Dick sniffled, he was trying so hard to be strong for the vague memory of his parents; it almost a relief to be told that it was okay to not be okay. Ivy squeezed his hand. “We’re committed now, sprout. You’re not getting rid of us anytime soon.”

* * *

Dick would say that his new life living with Ivy took some adjusting to—that is, if he could remember his old life enough to compare it to. At any rate, he liked living with Ivy. She got him lots of books so he could learn at home without having to go to school. Dick got the feeling he had been homeschooled before… everything happened… so he didn’t mind this setup.

Even better, Ivy was a fantastic cook. All their food was vegetarian and came from her garden. Dick was banned from the kitchen in their first week when he somehow managed to blow up their pot of soup, coating himself and the kitchen in one fell swoop. The stove wasn’t even _on_. Thankfully Ivy wasn’t mad (Harley on the other hand, who had come over for dinner, was rolling on the floor laughing while tears streamed down her face).

Ivy made him clean it all up, but that was perfectly reasonable, in Dick’s opinion. He couldn’t thank Ivy enough for taking him in, so he tried to help out around the house however he could. Even if he couldn’t cook, he made himself useful by setting the table and making sure to help clean up after dinner. He even asked Ivy for some chores. After asking her four times in a single day what he could do to help, Ivy gave him an amused look.

“Sprout, you know you don’t have to be my manservant just because you live here now, right?”

“I know,” Dick shuffled his feet. “But I still want to be useful. And if I sit for too long then I get bored, so really, it would be nice of you to give me things to do.” Dick stared up at her with those big blue eyes of his and Ivy caved.

“Ok, fine,” she laughed. “I suppose you could sweep during the day, and if I need any help in the garden then I’ll make sure to come to you.”

Ivy was adjusting much better to having a child in her home than she thought she would. It definitely helped that Dick was an intelligent, curious, and self-sufficient boy. She found herself enjoying his company.

He was a handful in other ways, however. The villainess nearly had a heart attack one morning when she was tending to her garden while he played in the trees. She had looked up to check on him just as Dick hurled himself from one of the highest branches in a large oak tree. In a panic, Ivy already had vines racing to catch him, but at the last second, he caught another branch and used the momentum to swing himself up into the air, where he backflipped before lightly landing in a perfect dismount.

“ _Richard John Grayson!_ What on _earth_ do you think you’re doing?” Ivy rushed over to him and frantically checked him over for any injuries, but he was perfectly fine.

The rascal had the audacity to laugh. “I’m figuring out what I used to know from the circus! I read in one of those psychology books you got me that even if I can’t remember anything yet, I should still have my muscle memory, and it might jog the rest of my memory. The best way to test that is in action!”

“In _action?_ ” She pinched the bridge of her nose. When she took Dick in she hadn’t expected that making sure he didn’t kill himself by throwing himself out of a tree would be a part of parenthood. “Ok, your theory has merit, but last week’s science lesson was about the twelve principles of green chemistry. What do you remember of them?”

He tilted his head, thinking for a moment. “Well, mostly they were about making sure your experiments are as safe as possible for the environment and people and stuff, right?”

Ivy nodded. “Rule twelve, Dick: _Choose and develop procedures that are safer and inherently minimize the risk of accidents. Know the possible risks and assess them beforehand._ Now tell me, do you think you followed that rule for your experiment?”

“No,” Dick replied sheepishly. “Sorry Ivy, I won’t do it again.”

She pursed her lips in thought. “That’s not to say you can’t still test this theory though.” His eyebrows shot up in excitement.

***

That’s how Ivy and Dick found themselves driving into Gotham to the nearest gymnastics studio the next day. Ivy was dressed smartly in slacks and a tan peacoat. Dick wore jeans and a sweatshirt; they looked every bit the part of an entirely normal family. Ivy walked up to the counter and smiled at the receptionist, a young man who looked extraordinarily bored.

“Hello, I would like to enroll my son, Richard, in classes here. We just moved to Gotham and it’s been a few years since his last class, so we’re not sure what he still remembers. Do you have any classes that would be a good fit?”

The man didn’t even look up from his magazine as he said, “We’re not accepting new students. Check somewhere else.”

Ivy bristled at the cold response. Nevertheless, she persisted. “Are you sure? I don’t mean to be rude, but I am quite certain that when I checked your website it said you were accepting new—”

“Listen lady, I don’t run the website, I just man the desk. I told you we’re not taking any newbies, so go bother someone else.” And at that the man turned back to his magazine, completely ignoring Ivy and Dick.

“It’s okay,” Dick said to her quietly. “There are other studios…”

There were. The next nearest was nine miles out of their way. At this point Ivy was already angry at the rude exchange with the man, but at the fleeting look of disappointment that Dick tried to hide, she felt something cold slide into place inside of her.

“Hmmm.” She looked down to the man’s name tag. “Tristan, was it?” Ivy leaned over the counter and gently placed her hand on his wrist. It always thrilled her to see the instantaneous change take hold in her victims; Tristan’s expression changed from one of annoyance to mindless devotion. “Here’s what I’d like you to do, Tristan. Fetch someone else for us to talk to. After that, I want you to leave this building, walk five blocks, and then strip to your socks and underwear. It’s such a lovely day, that you just _have_ to take a nice long walk around town, don’t you? How does that sound?”

“Awesome,” Tristan slurred, a lazy grin on his slack face. Ivy glanced down to Dick, who was staring at her with wide eyes. Tristan stood up and stumbled over to a side door in the office. “Yo, Kat! Get over here, I’m taking my break.” And at that, he strode out of the building.

A few moments later, a short young woman with curly dark brown hair and olive skin poked her head through the doorway. Her face broke into an easy smile upon seeing Ivy and Dick.

“Hey there, what can I do for you?”

“Hello, I was hoping to enroll my son in classes here, but I’m afraid your coworker Tristan was a little… less than helpful.”

Kat groaned and rubbed her chin in embarrassment. “I apologize for anything he said, he’s worse than unhelpful on the best of days. To be honest with you, I don’t think he’ll be here much longer.”

Ivy’s face was a mask of innocence. “Oh, really?”

“So we hope. At any rate, despite anything Tristan may have said, our gymnastics studio is an excellent place for students both new and continuing. We’re a family-run gymnastics establishment that prioritizes the safety, fun, and learning of all skills gymnastics related. We offer a variety of classes for all skill levels.”

Ivy peered down to Dick, quirking an eyebrow. His face split into a wide grin. “When can I start?”

***

Dick was quiet for most of the ride home. Ivy was about to ask if he was nervous about starting the classes when he abruptly spoke. “How did you do that to that guy back there? How did you make him leave? It was really cool.”

Ivy was silent for a moment, contemplating her answer (and inwardly elated that Dick didn’t think of what she had done as inherently evil). They hadn’t had this talk yet, but she saw how he watched the plants in the greenhouse respond to her touch. He was very observant, and it was the kind of thing he liked to pay attention to.

“Well, I have certain… abilities, you could call them. I am very in tune with nature, and in turn, nature is in tune with me. I know you’ve seen how my plants are around me. That’s because I can understand them. All my life I’ve tried to protect them, and often they appreciate that and try to help me. I was in an accident many years ago that gave me this ability to understand plants, and it also allows me to make certain chemicals in my body that other humans can’t.” Dick nodded along, his eyes wide and his brain moving a mile a minute as he processed this information.

“So back there, what I did, was release a chemical that would make him very susceptible to my suggestions. It works best if the target is attracted to me, and even better if there is exchange of saliva, but for weak-minded people like him, simple skin contact is often enough. I can also render people unconscious if I choose, among other things.” She figured it might be good to leave out the bit about being able to poison people for now. Ivy glanced over to Dick in the passenger seat. She knew far better than to take him for one of the pigs of the city who feared her on principle, but the information still could be a shock at first. Her concerns were unfounded however, as Dick’s face lit up with excitement and curiosity, his mind bursting with questions.

“That’s so awesome! So, is it like a reflex? Can you turn it on and off? Do you know if there are any plants that can do the same things? And when Harley comes over to watch me some nights, are you out fighting bad guys who cut down forests, and saving the planet?”

Well. That was, quite possibly, the best response Ivy had ever gotten to telling anyone about her powers. She answered all his questions with zeal, and every answer prompted a new question from Dick. His questions were impressively inquisitive and creative, leading Ivy to consider parts of her abilities that even she hadn’t considered before. If his questions were any indication, Dick was shaping up to be a brilliant scientist (if he chose to go that route), and she couldn’t be prouder.

They spent the rest of the night talking all about her powers and how she put them to good use trying to save the planet. Soon though, it was late and Dick’s questions had to be put on hold so they could get some sleep. As Ivy tucked him in, he regarded her with sleepy, content eyes. “Ivy, do you think I can help you someday? With trying to save the planet?”

She knew that he was talking about more than just composting and cleaning up litter. The thought of Dick helping her destroy businesses that destroyed the environment terrified the maternal side of her, but she had to admit that the idea also thrilled her. Ivy chewed her lip as she considered his words. “Perhaps someday in the future, that could be possible. But you’d have to be absolutely sure, and it’s not a decision to make lightly.”

He nodded; his expression suddenly absolutely serious. “One of the things I remember from the circus pretty well is the animals. I loved them, but they always seemed so unhappy. They always had enough food and water, and everything to live well, but the life they were living… it just wasn’t right, they were being taken advantage of. And I was sad for them, because I knew that they could never go back to where they came from—a lot of their habitats don’t even exist anymore. They’re dying Ivy, and I don’t know if I can make a difference, but I feel like I should at least try.”

She tilted her head in response. It was a cause slightly different than her own, but just as valid. “Well Dick, I think that would be a very good thing to fight for, very good indeed. Whether it’s plants, animals, or people, we all need protecting sometimes.” The smile he gave her made Ivy’s heart glow. She kissed his forehead, murmuring, “Goodnight, Sprout.” He snuggled deeper into his blankets as she flicked off his lights.

As Ivy shut the door, she heard a whispered, “Goodnight Ivy.”

***

On the other side of the city, Bruce Wayne slammed his hand against his keyboard, as for the umpteenth time his search for the missing boy turned up cold.

“Something frustrating you, sir?” Bruce’s butler and closest confidant Alfred asked, bringing the vigilante a pre-crime-fighting meal.

“Richard Grayson is still missing, and it’s as though he vanished without a trace. I can’t find him in any government care system. Even if he was using a pseudonym, I should be able find him. He’s not dead, because there would be evidence, and there’s just nothing Alfred.”

“If I may, sir, is there a reason you are so invested in this particular misplaced youth? Unfortunately, missing children are not an uncommon occurrence in this city as you and I both know. What warrants spending a portion of every night searching for him, when the same is not your standard procedure for other children?”

Bruce rubbed a scarred hand over his tired eyes. “I saw his face, Alfred. When he watched his parents die in front of him, I saw a part of myself. Maybe I’m being selfish, but I can’t in good conscience let this go until I’ve done everything I can to find him, until I know he’s either beyond help or out of harm’s way.”

Alfred didn’t voice his thoughts, but he felt that given the option, Bruce would have taken in the boy in a heartbeat. That in itself evidenced just how personal this case had become to his master. “In that case sir, perhaps you ought to look where you haven’t yet looked.”

It was a mark of the depth of their relationship that Bruce didn’t react to the slight, but rather took it as it was meant, a helpful comment. “That’s the problem, I’ve looked everywhere.”

“In what manner?”

“I’ve got my facial recognition software running through every camera in the city and surrounding areas, my computer is set to notify me if there is any mention of a Richard Grayson in any government server or other online platform nationally and internationally, and my contacts within the Gotham PD are keeping me informed of any developments in the case. They’re just as stumped as I am.”

“Well, if we’re assuming that the boy is still alive, then that offers several possibilities. One, he could be held somewhere, kidnapped and out of the public eye. Two, he could have fled the city, devastated at his parents’ demise, like a certain boy I happened to know once upon a time.” Bruce ignored Alfred’s quirked eyebrow at the jab. “And three, whether intentional or not, he could be avoiding security cameras. Perhaps he is in an area without many cameras, such as a low-income residential area, or in a more rural area.”

Bruce had already considered all of those options, but Alfred’s wording made him consider an option that he had not yet exhausted. The south eastern side of the city—most Gothamites didn’t even consider it part of Gotham, even though it was only one bridge and 15 minutes away from downtown. It was across the river and inland, in an area that people generally went to hike, as it was the start of more rugged terrain. There were sprawling fields interspersed with farms, a few wineries, and some smaller towns, before the terrain melted into thick forest. He suspected Poison Ivy to have a secret hideout in the area, but he had yet to find it. Bruce grudgingly had to admit that the villainess was excellent at hiding her tracks.

Now that he thought about it… Ivy had been uncharacteristically silent for the past several weeks. There had only been minor activity, run of the mill destruction of construction equipment and the like. It was a long shot, but in his profession, Bruce had learned long ago that even the unlikeliest of leads often had merit.

“Alfred, you might just be a genius, you know that?”

As he left to return to the manor, Alfred called over his shoulder, “You are only discovering that now, sir?”

Bruce smirked and settled into his work, now with a new direction to pursue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's up my dudes! Sorry this chapter is a bit later than I intended. My spring break ended last week, and what do you know, as a graduating college senior who's finalizing their biochemistry research, I have stuff to do! Yeah, procrastination is not my friend :P
> 
> This week's chapter title comes from the song Blackbird, by the Beatles, another one of my favorite bands. And now Bruce has shown up? What ever will he do next? If you can't tell, I'm having a lot of fun writing this. If you're having fun reading, please feel free to drop a comment or a kudos! They sustain me in these fun anxiety-ridden times :D


	4. It must be fate I found a place for us, I bet you didn’t know that I was dangerous

“I thought you said Dick hadn’t taken lessons for a few years? He’s a natural!” Kat raved when Ivy picked Dick up from his first day of gymnastics. “At the start of the lesson I took him around our different stations, to get a feel for his ability. He particularly excelled at vault and still rings, but given some time and practice, it won’t be long until he’s excelling at the other areas as well.

Ivy beamed down at Dick and he beamed back. He kept that smile for the rest of the night, as he practiced some of his moves in the forest outside. The past weeks had been rough for Dick, and it filled Ivy with warmth to see him so joyful for the first time. The routine of it also had to be having a positive effect. He went for two hours on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. When he wasn’t at gymnastics, Dick primarily was around their forest home, keeping up with his studies and continuing to explore the greenhouse and surrounding forest. It was a pleasant surprise when Ivy found that Dick was naturally interested in her plants, even requesting one day to pick up some books on plant science from the library.

“I can do you one better,” Ivy replied with a wide grin, leading Dick to her office. He had been in there before of course, but he hadn’t yet seen inside the large cabinet in the far corner of the space. When Ivy threw open the doors to the cabinet, Dick turned slack jawed in amazement at the sheer number of books Ivy had on all manners of botany.

“In this cabinet is all of the books I own on plant science. There are studies on the environment, simple field guides to local plants, textbooks left over from my college days, copies of research I’ve done myself… If you’re looking for anything specific, I can almost guarantee that you’ll find something similar in here. You’re welcome to read all of it—if there’s anything you don’t understand, because this can definitely be heavy reading, don’t hesitate to ask me, sprout.”

Dick’s eyes were stars as he picked out a few books to read. They we’re good choices: a guide to local edible and toxic plants, a book on forest ecology, and one on the flora and fauna of New Zealand (that was a personal favorite of Ivy’s). He read for the next few hours in the rafters of the greenhouse.

When Ivy went to check up on Dick before heading to bed, she found him fast asleep, a new notebook joining the others on his desk. In addition to his general studies notebooks for English, mathematics, and science, he now had one titled in all caps: COOL PLANT STUFF.

* * *

Dick was greatly enjoying his schooling. Being allowed to do pretty much whatever he wanted throughout the day and getting to choose what to learn? Who would say no to that? He supposed his life could be better, but all things considered, it could be a lot worse, too. Dick was still having therapy sessions whenever Harley came over—this wasn’t a bad arrangement at all, he noticed that Ivy laughed more when Harley was around, and he was glad to hear it. He sometimes worried that his guardian was lonely, she seemed to only have him and Harley in her life. But when Harley was over, it seemed as though their strange little family was exactly what the other needed.

“So kiddo,” Harley started after dinner one night as they cleaned the dishes. “How’ve you been? You still writing in that memory journal like I toldja to do?”

“Yep. I still don’t have much…” he remarked dejectedly as he accepted a dish to dry. “But whenever I remember something it goes in the journal. I just wish I could actually remember the kind of people my parents were…”

Harley patted his arm sympathetically. “It takes time kiddo, it’s a bummer but it’s the truth. You’re on the right path, now ya just gotta stick it out. The memories will come back, you should focus on the progress you’ve made instead of what ya don’t know yer missin’!”

He smiled at the remark. “Thanks, Harley. It’s just hard, because I feel like I’ve lost people I never got to say goodbye to, because as far as I know right now, I never even got to say hello. Is that weird?”

“Hmmm…” Harley tapped her chin with a sudsy hand, leaving a bubble goatee that she didn’t notice (or didn’t care about). “Well, I’m not gonna lie, your situation is definitely unique, so there’s not much we can compare it to. But if you’d like _my_ professional opinion, I’d say that makes perfect sense. You’re in a state of trying to grieve, but ‘cha don’t really know _what_ to grieve. You’re in kinda a backwards state of mourning—as time goes on, you’ll remember more about your parents, and have more to feel sad about. Have you remembered anything else?”

Dick looked down to the cutting board he was drying and smiled. It was a bittersweet smile, because although he was thrilled to be remembering more, as Harley had said, he was also finding more things to realize he had lost. “Yeah. My mama’s food, actually. There was this sweet walnut bread that she’d make for special occasions, like Christmas. It tasted _amazing_.”

Harley grinned. “It sounds amazing. Maybe we can make some for Thanksgiving!”

Dick’s face lit up. “Are you coming over for Thanksgiving?”

“Of course I am, kiddo! You know I wouldn’t miss Ivy’s cookin’ for the world, especially on a day like Thanksgivin’. You two are my family, and it’s a day for havin’ fun with your family! Maybe I’ll even bring Nathan,” she whispered conspiratorially to Dick.

His eyebrows shot up. That dog was an absolute cuddle bug, when Harley watched him on the nights that Ivy was out protecting the nature around Gotham, Harley always made sure to bring Nathan over to take Dick’s mind off worrying for his guardian. Nathan somehow always ended up curled next to Dick when he went to bed.

Dick smiled as he made to place the cutting board in the drying rack. He tilted his head, however, as an issue made itself immediately clear. “Uhhh, Harley?”

“What’s up, kiddo?”

“Just how hot is the water you’re washing the dishes in?”

She looked up, confused at his remark, and her confusion only grew as she looked at the ruined cutting board in his hands, the thick plastic streaming in rivulets through his fingers. “Uhhh, not hot enough to do that? It’s barely lukewarm.”

They stared at the board for a few moments, before yelling in tandem, “IVYYYYY!”

* * *

Ivy read the results of Dick’s blood test intently from the computer screen in her greenhouse lab. Harley sat next to her on the table humming what sounded suspiciously like the tune to “She Blinded Me with Science.” Dick sat on the floor, trying to teach Nathan how to roll over on command. All three of them had a similar question on their minds, various versions of ‘What the ever-loving heck?’

“Well,” Ivy sighed, pushing back from her computer. “Dick’s not dying.”

Harley let out a whoop. “Great! Let’s get ice cream to celebrate.”

“Not so fast. Dick, you remember when you were attacked by that plant a few months ago?”

“No, I have amnesia.” He and Harley snickered at his joke while Ivy rolled her eyes.

“Okay you’re at least aware that it happened. That plant had been growing unsupervised while I was stuck in Arkham for a few weeks. I had been experimenting on it before I was captured by Batman, and my goal had been to modify a plant so it could have strong acid as a defense mechanism. Now, I could be wrong, but I’m about 95% sure that I was successful—I compared the blood sample that I took just now to what I had taken just after I found you.”

Ivy gestured to four images on the screen: a before and after of both Dick’s DNA and his blood cells. Immediately some differences were clear. For starters, the strands of DNA shown didn’t match—the after image was missing some chunks that the before image had, and also had sections that the before image didn’t. As for the image of the blood cells, while the first had a few white dots dispersed throughout, the second had as many white dots as blood cells.

“It looks like when you were bitten by the plant, what I had been trying to do to it transferred itself to you. There’s two sides to this: for starters, you have far higher white blood cell count than is common, but the interesting thing here is that it seems to be an evolved form of the type of white blood cell involved with the destruction of foreign pathogens. What it’s doing instead, is stockpiling the same strong acids that I exposed the plant to. Here’s where the second part comes in. Now, we’ll need to do more tests, but it seems that when you are faced with a certain stimulus, the stockpiled acids are released as a defense mechanism. It’s like if you’re scared by something, your heart starts to beat faster because adrenaline has been released to prepare you to fight or run.”

The trio sat in stunned silence for a few moments. Dick was the one to break it. “So, I’m not gonna pretend that I understood all that you just said.”

“Agreed,” piped up Harley.

“So correct me if I’m wrong, but did you basically just say that I have superpowers now?”

Ivy nodded once. Inexplicably, she suddenly burst into tears. “ _I’m so sorry, Dick!_ I never intended for one of my creations to harm a child like you, I should have been more careful, and—”

Dick and Harley were absolutely bewildered at Ivy’s reaction. “Hang on, why are you crying?”

“Because- because you’re not a normal human anymore, and I don’t know how to fix it! This is in your DNA, which means that you’re— oh my god, I turned you into a _metahuman_ like _me!_ ”

Her sobs renewed once more, but Dick was completely baffled at the situation. “Ivy. You said yourself, I’m not gonna die, right?”

“No, no, medically you’re completely healthy, but your _DNA_ —”

“Then no harm done.”

She hiccupped. “W- what? You’re not upset?”

He grinned at her. “Ivy, you just told me that I have _superpowers_! I mean, yeah, it’ll take some getting used to, for sure. But do you have any idea how _cool_ this is? Once I’m old enough to help you fight the people killing the earth, I’ll actually be able to do something!”

She made a choking noise that was somewhere in between a laugh and a sob as she enclosed him in a hug. “I love you so much, Sprout, never forget that.”

He laughed in response. “Love you too, Ivy.”

They sat like that for a moment until the rest of Ivy’s tears had faded.

Harley spoke up. “Soooo, ice cream? Yes or no?”

* * *

“Alright! I have a few things outside for you to test with your powers, we need to see exactly how they react with different materials so you can learn how to control it. We also need to figure out how you activate your powers. What were you doing yesterday when you melted the cutting board?”

It was one of Gotham’s rare sunny days, so the trio had gone into the yard after breakfast to test out Dick’s newfound powers. While the November air certainly had a bit of a chill to it, it was still a lovely day. Dick noticed that when Ivy was out in the sun, her skin tended to take on a soft shade of green, probably something to do with her powers. Harley sprawled out in the grass where she was weaving Nathan a flower crown.

“We were talking about Thanksgiving. I was excited that Harley’s coming over, and that she might bring Nathan, and that she said we can make my mama’s walnut desert.”

Ivy nodded. “So it looks like I was on the right track with high emotions being the key somehow. Let’s try this first. Hold out a hand, please.”

Dick did as he was told, and Ivy spritzed his hand with some water. From her pocket she pulled out a small plastic container containing strips of slightly yellow paper. Upon placing one in Dick’s damp hand, it turned an olive green.

“Okay, that makes sense.” Upon Dick’s questioning look, Ivy explained. “This is Litmus paper; it tells us how acidic or basic things are. Green means neutral pH, which is what water is at. Now, I’m going to place another piece in your hand, but first I want you to think of something exciting, or something that makes you happy—anything you like, whether it’s Thanksgiving again, or something in gymnastics…”

“Oooh, oooh, I can help!” Harley brushed the grass from her pants as she walked over to Dick and Ivy. “How’s this kiddo: Two cowboys are lost in the desert. One of them sees a tree in the distance that’s draped in bacon. ‘It’s a bacon tree, we’re saved!’ he says. He runs up to the tree and is immediately shot up with bullets. It wasn’t a bacon tree, it was a ham-bush!”

It was such a stupid joke that Dick immediately snorted and started snickering. After a few moments, Ivy placed a fresh strip of paper in his palm, and this time it turned bright orange.

“Nicely done, Dick! That’s a pH of about three, right there.”

“Woahhhh,” Dick and Harley said in unison, peering at the soggy paper in his hand.

“Alright, test number two.” Ivy handed Dick a towel to dry his hands with. “Here, put your hand on this stack of paper.”

Ivy had a variety of items on a glass topped patio table, among them a stack of plain white printer paper. Dick concentrated hard, staring at the stack of paper underneath his hand. He peered intently at the paper, and at first, nothing happened. But slowly, steam seemed to curl upwards out of the paper, the top sheet getting browner and darker, until quite suddenly, it burst into flame.

Dick yelped and pulled his hand back, but Ivy had apparently expected this outcome. She quickly pulled out a fire extinguisher and within seconds had the fire put out.

“That was excellent Dick, really excellent! Let me see your hands, are you hurt anywhere?” He flipped his hands over and back again, but there wasn’t even a mark.

“Cool!”

Ivy surveyed the remains of the papers, about a third of which had a charred handprint burned into the center. “I think you’re a little like a baby rattlesnake right now. Because they’re young, they don’t know how much venom to put out when they bite something. As a result, they put far too much venom into a bite and are more likely than adult rattlesnakes to be lethal. Not that I think you’ll accidentally harm someone!” she added at the apprehensive look on Dick’s face. “Right now, because you’ve really only known about these powers for a day, you don’t know how to control the strength of the acid.” Kneeling down, she took his hands in hers and smiled. “But don’t you worry, I’m confident that you’ll get a hang of it soon.”

They spent the rest of the morning testing out different materials against Dick’s newfound ability. Plastics melted under his touch almost immediately, while metals would begin to rust through given enough time. Wood was a similar story to the paper; after a few moments of grasping a stick it started to smoke. Glass was the only thing that didn’t have much of a dent made in it.

Dick stared at the glass cup he was holding, eyes screwed up in concentration (Harley offhandedly noted that he looked adorable trying so hard). After a minute he let go of the glass. It had become a little less transparent where his hand touched the surface, but otherwise was unchanged. Dick tilted his head. “Did I do something wrong?”

Ivy repeated the process with the pH paper, but this time it came away red. “Definitely not! That’s a pH of two, it’s even more acidic than before. You’re doing really well for your first day, sprout! Glass is just really hard to effect with acid, normally only highly concentrated hydrofluoric acid will do that, and that’s not one of the ones I experimented on the plant with, so don’t worry.” He scrunched up his eyes and laughed as she ruffled his hair. “What do you think about having some lunch?”

Dick stomach grumbled loudly. Until now it had slipped his notice that he was starving.

“That’s what I thought. Using my powers always makes me really hungry too. C’mon, I’ll make us some sandwiches.”

* * *

Dick polished off three tomato and mozzarella sandwiches before he was full. Man, it was cool to have superpowers, but he’d have to make sure to eat more if he didn’t want to starve.

“Hey Sprout, just a head’s up, I’m going out tonight.” In their household, ‘I’m going tonight’ was a euphemism for ‘I’ll be going out to engage in less than legal activities that are generally frowned upon by the public because said public don’t seem to care that they are killing the planet’.

“Okay, be safe!”

She smiled. “Always, hun. I did have something I wanted to ask you—and keep in mind that it is completely okay to say no.”

“You want me to come with you?”

Ivy sputtered out an answer in horror. “ _Absolutely_ _not_! Richard Grayson you are 12 years old, that is far too young to be out on the streets fighting young man! What poor excuse for a guardian would I be if I were to even _consider_ allowing that—?”

Dick snickered at her reaction. “Jeez calm down Ivy, I was kidding. What did you actually want to ask me?”

Ivy shook her head at her pseudo-son. “One of these days you’re going to give me a heart attack Dick, I swear. I was going to ask if you’d be alright being here alone tonight. Harley was hoping to come with me—she has a bone to pick with the company I’m taking down.”

From the couch where Harley scrolled through movies she spoke up. “The company tests their cosmetics on animals.”

“Not to mention that the chemicals going into their cosmetics are so dangerous for their workers that the company has many hushed-up lawsuits about cancer due to the unsafe working conditions. The chemical runoff from the factory is one of the main pollutants in Gotham Harbor.”

Dick nodded. Secretly he thought it would be safer for them both if they went as a pair. He’d heard Ivy and Harley’s stories about their fights against the Batman, and while he trusted their fighting skills, he was privately a little scared of the vigilante. What sane person dressed up like a _bat_ and spent their nights picking fights with strangers for the fun of it? Dick wouldn’t have such an issue with the man if he didn’t directly threaten his family members’ health on a regular basis. And why did he have to target them in the first place? Dick was fully aware that his pseudo-moms’ actions weren’t legal, but that didn’t make them bad people. At least Ivy was trying to save the environment when she went out. And Harley… well, Dick wasn’t quite convinced that her goal in life was to improve the world like Ivy, but he knew she was a good person in her heart, and that was good enough for him. He shook his head to clear his thoughts. “Sounds like important stuff. Yeah I’ll be totally fine here by myself. Can Nathan stay with me?”

“Of course, kiddo! Just a warning, he gets gassy if I’m not near him.” Nathan looked up from the plate he was licking clean as Harley shot him a stink eye.

They spent the rest of the afternoon watching movies (interspersed with one popcorn fight between Harley and Dick). As the sun set, Ivy and Harley walked out of the bathroom donned in their villainy gear. Ivy kneeled by Dick who was reading a book on the couch.

“Ok, remember the plan hun. Harley and I should be back by around 11:00. There’s leftover eggplant parmesan in the fridge that you just need to microwave for dinner. Keep all the doors locked, and don’t open them for anyone. If anything happens while we’re gone, do not hesitate to call. If we don’t pick up, there’s a number on the fridge for our friend Selina, she’ll help out. We’ll be home before you know it, okay?”

“I’ll be fine, Ivy. You guys be safe, okay?”

Ivy hugged him and Harley ruffled his hair. “Always, sprout.” He waved to them through the window as they sped off in Harley’s car. It was a very nice car, bright red, and could go _very_ fast. Dick didn’t plan to tell Ivy anytime soon that Harley had taken him with her to test that out. He _definitely_ wasn’t going to tell her that Harley let him drive it too. It occurred to him that Harley had probably stolen it, but anyone who could afford a car that nice had to have oodles of money lying around. Dick put his hands on his hips.

“Okay Nathan, we got the place to ourselves. What should we do?”

Nathan blinked slowly at Dick before waddling off to his bedroom.

“Great idea Nathan, we should see what we can do in my room.”

The room wasn’t particularly large, but Dick had managed to make it a space that he could really call his. His bed was adorned with blue constellation sheets, they matched the glow in the dark stars he had on his ceiling. The dresser held his few possessions, and next to his bedside table was a small but rapidly growing collection of photographs of his small family. Dick’s favorite was probably the one where Harley reenacted the Lion King with Nathan, while Ivy facepalmed in the background.

He started reading a book, but quickly gave up, feeling restless; Dick didn’t like not knowing if Ivy and Harley were okay. He threw himself into the couch in the living room, turning on the news. The newscaster was currently droning on about some new exhibit in the Gotham history museum. Boooo-ring. If Ivy and Harley ended up on the news, there would be a big announcement. There wasn’t anything to worry about. Nothing whatsoever.

“Uggggghhhhhhhh.” He flopped bonelessly over the back of the couch. Dick needed _activity_. Sitting around was doing nothing to distract him.

He settled for climbing up to the rafters in the greenhouse. Maybe it was left over from the circus days he couldn’t remember, but he liked being high up. After about an hour of swinging around the rafters, doing flips and somersaults as he soared through the humid air, he heard an announcement come over the TV in the living room. Hanging upside down from the rafters, he was at the perfect angle to view the television. He turned up the volume with the controller in his pocket.

“Breaking news from the Gotham Harbor waterfront. The villains Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn have taken control of the Chloronex Cosmetics factory as of 8:37. Their motives and aims are so far unclear but we will keep viewers updated as more information becomes available.”

Dick smiled. They were right on time; Ivy had told him that the last shift for the factory ended at 8 pm, so they’d strike at 8:30. He swung himself back up to a sitting position on the beam, only to find that he wasn’t alone anymore.

“What’s up, kitten?”

Dick screamed and jumped backwards, cautiously regarding the stranger. She was dressed like a cat, had short dark hair, and a mischievous yet friendly smile on her lips. “W-who are you? How did you get in here? I’ll have you know, my… my parents are just at the store getting milk! Yeah, and they’ll be back any minute, so it won’t do you any good to kill me!”

The mystery woman laughed lightly. “No need to worry kid, I’m not here to kill you. My name is Selina, I’m a friend of Ivy and Harley’s. I drop by now and then to say hi, hang out, hide from the cops…”

“The cops? What are you hiding from the cops for?”

Selina tapped her chin, regarding Dick with a smile like a cat might regard its prey. “Hmmm… Ivy only took you in a few months ago, so you’re still pretty new in town, right? Have you heard of the Gotham History Museum?”

“Yeah, it was on the news earlier for some new exhibit, right? Something to do with Egypt?”

“That’s exactly right, kitten,” she purred. She swung a bag that had hung on her shoulder into her lap and beckoned for Dick to take a look. Despite his wariness, his curiosity got the better of him and he crept closer, peering into the canvas bag. Inside, carefully wrapped in tissue paper that Selina gently pulled aside, was a black stone cat about the size of Dick’s forearm. It was smoothly rendered, with a gold collar around its neck, and had small emeralds glittering where its eyes would be. Dick sat down on the beam next to Selina, caution forgotten.

“Wow, that’s really pretty. What’s it from?”

She smiled at his interest. “This statue comes from the time of the Egyptian pharaoh Nefertiti, who lived around 1370 B.C.E. Cats are the symbol of Bastet, an important goddess to ancient Egyptians. This statue here was stolen from a tomb by British soldiers in the 1800’s. I’m going to sell it back to a museum in Egypt, that’s where it belongs—not in the hands of greedy men in America.”

Dick tilted his head. Selina was similar to Ivy, then. She had clearly stolen the statue from the museum, but it also clearly would be better in the hands of the people it belonged to. She couldn’t be a bad person then, right?

She seemed to be waiting for a response from Dick. He smiled at her. “That’s really cool, so you help the world like Ivy does then.” He paused. “But how _did_ you get in here?”

Clearly pleased with his response, she answered. “Oh, just through the roof windows.”

“But those are locked.”

“I know, I picked the locks. I _could_ have used the front door, but where’s the fun in that?”

Dick grinned at her. “That’s why I like walking around on my hands. It’s more fun that way.”

“Exactly, you need to have fun in life! Hey, do you know how to pick locks?”

“No, Harley was talking about teaching me, but Ivy thought it would be a bad influence.”

“Do you want to learn?”

* * *

The villainous duo pulled up to their greenhouse home right on time. It had been a successful night—they were able to implode the factory just as Batman showed up. Ivy was pleased that the factory wouldn’t be able to pump any more chemicals into the harbor. Maybe the fish would actually be able to start reproducing once more, now that their water wouldn’t be clogged with carcinogens.

Harley was grinning ear to ear, hair disheveled and face paint smudged. The fight with Batsy had been fun, but he was no match for the two of them. The last glimpse she got of him as they sped off was the comical image of Batman trying to saw out of vines that ensnared him. Harley had accomplished her goal for the night as well. All the miserable animals that had spent their years stuck in cages, never seeing the light of day, formed a wave of chaotic joy as they were led by Harley to freedom on the Gotham streets. Well, all except for one. In her arms was a black lop-eared rabbit—Dick was sure to love it. It had an injured paw, and it looked so sad, she couldn’t just leave it behind.

Ivy’s keys jangled as she found the one for the front door. “Well I’d say that went rather well. Let’s hope Cloronex stays gone for good this time—” a peal of laughter interrupted her musings as she opened the door to find Dick sitting next to Selina on the couch. Harley bounded in.

“Hiya, Dick! I gotcha a present! Oh hey Selina!”

Dick’s eyes were saucers as the black rabbit was placed gently in his lap. Selina watched the entire exchange with amusement.

“It’s mine? I get to keep it?”

“Yep!” Harley responded, popping the ‘p’. “Whatcha gonna name her?”

“Hmmm,” Dick petted the rabbit’s soft fur. “How about Zitka?”

“That’s a wonderful name, sprout.” He grinned at Ivy. “What are you still doing up? It’s much past your bedtime. And as lovely as it is to see you, what are you doing here, Selina?”

Before Selina could answer, Dick spoke up. “Well, I was gonna stay up anyway to make sure you guys got home safe. But then Selina stopped by, she said she’s a friend of yours, and she said she’d wait with me until you got home. She’s been teaching me how to pick locks! Here, watch this,” Dick held a simple combination lock, not unlike what you’d find on a locker. Using a few paper clips, he fiddled with the lock, and a few moments later, it sprung open.

“Very impressive,” Ivy praised, internally screaming. This boy would be the death of her, if her friends had anything to say about it. “Why don’t you get ready for bed, there’s a cardboard box in the pantry you can make a bed out of for Zitka until we get her something more permanent.”

“Okay!” And with that he bounded off, Nathan trotting happily in his wake.

Selina stood up to pour them all glasses of wine. It had become somewhat of a tradition for the friends; after any activity for their alter egos, whether successful or not, they would end the night with a glass of wine. “Alright, that child is adorable. Where did you find him, Ives?”

“Well…” Ivy recounted the tale as they changed into pajamas in her bedroom. Selina whistled.

“Poor kid. I’m glad you found him, who knows what could have happened to him otherwise. I _did_ notice that by the time you guys returned, the lock I had him practicing on was covered in rust. I’m assuming that’s an effect of his powers?”

Ivy grimaced. “Yes, we’re still practicing his control, it tends to slip if he’s excited by something. I’ve already spoken with my contacts in the underground about getting him some special gloves—carbon fiber, they should be resistant to his powers until he gains more control.”

“Just imagine how easily he’ll be able to break through locks once he’s older…” Selina had a far-off look that glinted in her eyes.

“Hey, get your own traumatized orphan, this one’s _mine_.” Ivy playfully punched Selina in the arm. She stuck her nose up in the air and looked down at Ivy with a mischievous smile on her lips.

“Fine, maybe I will.” She jumped off the bed. “That doesn’t mean Auntie Selina can’t kidnap him for a night of fun now and then.” Selina winked at Ivy over her shoulder and then booked it out of the room, Ivy in hot pursuit. Harley saw this exchange as she exited the bathroom, toothbrush in mouth, and immediately joined in the chase.

Dick was not at all prepared when the three friends came tearing around the corner into the kitchen ( _he was just trying to get a bowl of cereal before bed, what’s wrong with that?_ ). He was definitely not expecting it when Selina scooped him up and deposited him on her shoulders. A shout of laughter escaped her kidnapee as cereal from the bowl still in hand rained down from above.

“Ivy, you know I only steal things of _immense_ value, so I’m stealing this one.”

Ivy spoke through barely restrained laughter. “Halt, Catwoman, that child is a rare and endangered species known as Circicus Boyus that I must protect!”

Harley, on the other hand, spoke through a mouthful of toothpaste. “Yeah, an’ ahm wid’ ‘er!”

The only warning Dick had was Selina’s hands securing his feet hanging over her shoulders before she sprinted around the kitchen table away from Ivy and Harley. He hurriedly grabbed onto the shoulder fabric of her PJs with a squeal of laughter. What ensued was a mock fight full of laughter and flying cereal. And if Dick ended up going to bed much later than usual, well, at least he could sleep in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well we have officially thrown canon in the recycling bin! Sorry for the later update, my classes continue to consume pretty much all of my time. On the bright side, this is the longest chapter by far so far! This week's song title is from the song 'Dangerous,' but the remix by Left Boy. If you haven't heard it, let me tell ya, it slaps. The joke Harley makes comes from badjokesbyjeff on tumblr, check out their profile if ya get a chance, it’s hilarious.  
> Speaking of Tumblr, I have one. If you wanna follow me for more random fandom bullshittery (primarily batfam, BNHA, DnD stuff, etc.), you can @wittychemist. Also thank you for all your comments and kudos!!! It makes my entire day when I get that AO3 email saying I have a comment or kudos :)  
> Until next time, stay healthy!


	5. Count my little scars, I've got dozens down inside

Thanksgiving was here. Dick had been looking forward to the day for weeks now, and he could hardly hold back his excitement now that it was upon them. He didn’t remember much from Thanksgivings with the circus, but he got the feeling there was lots of people, food, and laughter. Of course, there wouldn’t be nearly as many people at his little family’s Thanksgiving celebration, but that didn’t mean he was any less excited.

Dick was ready to help Ivy with preparing the food in whatever way he could. He woke up at 8 to help Ivy harvest the ingredients from their garden, to find a layer of snow dusting his windowsill. Dick gasped and sprinted downstairs, still in his pajamas.

Ivy was seated at the kitchen table, mug of cocoa in her hands as she read through the newspaper. “Good morning,” she smiled at her child. Ivy set down the paper and handed Dick a cup of cocoa in his favorite mug (it had elephants on it).

“Ivy! There’s _snow outside!_ ”

“I noticed. There’s not enough to do anything with now, but by lunchtime there should be a good amount. The paper says it’ll snow all day.”

Dick was bouncing with excitement. He picked up the paper and read quickly through the weather forecast.

“Careful there, hun, you might want to put on your gloves.”

Dick looked at the paper; where his hands touched it, it was starting to turn brown and smoke. He smiled sheepishly at Ivy as he set down the paper and went to find his gloves. “Sorry Ivy.” He tugged them on. They had arrived a week ago, a gift from Ivy. The gloves were specially made for Dick: constructed of thinly woven carbon fiber, they could withstand the acid produced by his skin. Rubber fingertips and pads on the palm of his hands helped his grip in the slick material. Dick didn’t like the feeling of the gloves at first, but he had to admit, they made it so he didn’t have to worry about accidentally melting or burning something when he was excited.

“Do you want to help me get some of the veggies out of the garden and prepare them for dinner? By the time we get through that there should be enough snow for you to play in it.”

“Yeah!” He was about to sprint into the garden when Ivy cleared her throat.

“Maybe you want to change out of your PJs first?”

He smiled sheepishly for the second time that morning. “Ooops.”

Ivy watched as Dick quickly reappeared in more suitable clothing and sprinted into the greenhouse. He didn’t do anything slow, that boy; Ivy had noticed this about him. Dick always seemed to be in action, even when doing something as simple as reading a book, he liked to do hanging upside down in the rafters like some gigantic possum. Ivy watched him rush around the rows of produce selecting a variety for their meal. The vegetable garden was, as always, bursting with fruit and vegetables.

Thanks to Ivy’s influence, all plants seemed to grow faster around her, and this applied just as much to produce. Ivy’s young charge was less attuned to the plants (and had to be careful he didn’t accidentally melt them with his powers). Ivy had, however, noticed that plants did sometimes respond to his touch—the vegetables would move into positions that were slightly easier for him to reach, and when he was playing in the forest, branches that were a little too far away would suddenly be there for him to grab.

This wasn’t due to her influence; Ivy was certain of that. When she first got her own powers, she spent many years training herself so that she didn’t accidentally awaken the plants around her. It was a wild time, both metaphorically and literally. At the slightest provocation, any vegetation surrounding her would leap to her defense, even when she didn’t wish for it to. It took lots of self-control to keep her powers, and by extension the nature around her, in check.

If Dick had some level of her connection with nature due to his own powers, then he wasn’t consciously using it. It was something she would work with him on in the future; for now, she was satisfied knowing that he was happy and healthy.

Her musings were interrupted by the very subject bursting into the kitchen with a basket full of veggies.

“Alright, let’s see what we’ve got here…”

The rest of the morning was consumed by the pair preparing various dishes. Dick chopped the vegetables for Ivy, who then transformed them into an amazing meal baking in the oven. Once everything was cooking, Dick spent the rest of the day playing in the snow until it got dark. Ivy took pictures of her cutie pie playing in the snow and made sure to get pictures of the three snowmen that were seemingly decorated to look like her, Harley, and Dick.

“Dick!” Ivy’s voice called from the greenhouse door. “Why don’t you come in and get ready for dinner, Harley should be coming over soon.”

“Coming!”

Dick nodded once more at his snowmen masterpiece and ran in to get out of the cold. The wind was starting to pick up as well, the snowflakes stinging his cheeks where they hit. Ivy handed him a mug of orange spice tea once he was free of the cold soggy clothing. “I’m going to change into something better for dinner, m’kay?”

Dick nodded. He had Zitka the rabbit on the table and was feeding her scraps of vegetables from their meal prep. He loved his rabbit; he didn’t have many friends (well, ok, he didn’t have _any_ friends) so it was nice to have something he could talk to, even if it couldn’t talk back. He had looked it up, and she was most likely a rabbit called a Velveteen Lop. They were coveted for their soft fur; the cosmetics company was probably testing their shampoos on her. The thought made Dick feel sick. At least Zitka was away from that horrible place now, and she had found a new friend in Nathan. All in all, she was a great addition to their small and strange family.

The sound of breaking glass coming from the greenhouse broke Dick from his admiration of his rabbit. _That’s weird, Ivy’s still upstairs, and Harley’s not here yet, could it be Selina? No, she’s usually much quieter when she breaks in, and she said she had plans tonight anyway…_ He gathered the rabbit in his arms and went to investigate.

The greenhouse was dark, the only light shining in from the door that connected it to the house. The plants cast odd shadows throughout the room and the howling wind rattled the windowpanes. Dick clutched Zitka tighter to his chest and told himself that it was because she would eat the veggies if she got loose. He definitely wasn’t scared.

The culprit of the sound of glass breaking quickly made itself evident; cold air was streaming in from a pane near the end of the rows of plants. It was weird though, there wasn’t anything among the shards of glass to give a clue to what had broken the window. Dick looked around and his gaze caught on something metallic glinting from the wall opposite the window. Pulling it out of the plaster, he flipped it in different directions, trying to figure out what it was. It was shiny, and very sharp to have made it through a window and into a wall, and if he held it horizontally, then it sorta looked like a stretched out bat…

Dick gasped, panic seizing his heart. That meant—

“Richard Grayson, I am glad to see you are unharmed. I had worried Zucco had gotten to you. Do not fear, I am here to rescue you from Poison Ivy.”

Dick whipped around at the gravelly voice, finding the shadowy figure of the _freaking_ **_Batman_** towering over him in the darkness. He pressed his back against the wall, terror making the hands clutching Zitka to his chest shake. What did he mean, who was Zucco? And what did Batman mean, _rescue_ him from _Ivy_ …?

“Zu-Zucco?”

Batman grunted. “Yes, the man who orchestrated your parents’ murders. Come, we must leave quickly if we are to be undisco—”

“ ** _IVYYYY!”_** Dick screamed, the terror of Batman briefly overcome by the petrifying thought of being taken away from Ivy.

Batman started, clearly expecting a different response from the boy. Before Dick even knew what was happening, Batman picked him up, pinning his arms to his chest so he could do little more than scratch at the hard plastic that covered the arms that held him aloft as he screamed. Zitka, who had fallen to the ground, was jumping at Batman, trying to scratch him with her tiny claws, but it was no match for whatever the armor was made of. The giant man started carrying him towards the back door of the greenhouse, where a black vehicle was waiting.

Dick’s panic reached a new height. Batman was taking him _away from Ivy_. Away from his _home_ , to some unknowable place. He had to fight back somehow, but for all his kicking and screaming the man wasn’t fazed. He couldn’t even get his hands free to try to loosen the hold… _Wait!_ His hands!

Dick wasn’t out of options after all. Just as Batman reached the doorway, Dick managed to pull the gloves off his hands and press his palms into the thick plastic on Batman’s arms. He focused all his concentration on his still shaky powers, and filled his mind with a singular thought: _let me go, let me go, let me GO!_

The plastic grew warm under his hands and Batman grunted as Dick was suddenly dropped to the ground. “How did you—”

“ _Get away from my son_.” Ivy’s snarl filled the room, and Dick had never been happier to see her as vines whipped around to pull him to her side. She quickly stepped in front of him as if to shield him with her body.

“What did you do to him Ivy,” Batman growled.

“Absolutely nothing, which is what you’re going to do with him.”

She raised her hands and flicked her wrists. The vegetation surrounding them immediately burst into action, vines trailing around Batman’s ankles, trees shooting their fruit at him at rapid speed, and some of Ivy’s more experimental plants jumping off the shelfs and crawling towards him on their roots. If it weren’t for the crisis at hand, Dick would have found the scene funny.

Unfortunately, Batman had come prepared. He pulled from his belt some sort of canister; when he pulled the pin, it began releasing a clear gas that made all the plants nearby begin wilting. As it wafted closer to Ivy and Dick, they both started coughing. It made Dick’s eyes and throat burn, and a numbness started to spread from his fingers up his arms. Whatever this gas was, it didn’t seem to effect Batman. Ivy, on the other hand was being impacted by it more than Dick. She had fallen to her knees and was trying to retain her tenuous grasp on the plant life around her, even as her breath came in choked gasps. As Batman kicked off the last of the vines, Ivy succumbed to the chemicals, passing out on the floor.

“Iv-Ivy!” Dick choked, shaking her shoulder to no avail. The way he was feeling, it seemed he didn’t have long until he fell unconscious as well. He looked around frantically, searching for anything that could possibly help him. There, on the potting shelf next to them, was a stack of newspapers that Ivy used when growing seedlings. And hadn’t Dick read somewhere that gases could be flammable? It was a long shot, but it was the best he had right now.

Dick grabbed a wad of the papers and started pulling Ivy towards the door that would lead them outside. He had to time this just right for it to work… As Batman walked up to them, just as he was about to grab Dick again, the young boy held his hand up, papers clasped tightly in his numb fist.

“What are you—” For a moment nothing happened, during which Dick felt his heart fall at his plan failing—before with a large FWOOM the gas ignited.

Dick must have passed out for a moment, because the next thing he knew, he was out in the meadow, fifteen feet from where the greenhouse was engulfed in flames. Flames which were quickly spreading into the house where their Thanksgiving dinner lay waiting. He had miraculously managed to keep his grasp on Ivy, who was still unconscious at his side.

Dick didn’t even realize Harley had pulled up until he saw out of the corner of his eye the gleaming red metal of her sports car. The ringing in his ears covered the roar of her engine. He got shakily to his feet and stumbled towards her car, still trying to pull Ivy behind him, Zitka thankfully hopping along by his side. Harley seemed to be moving in slow motion even as she sprinted to his side and helped him drag Ivy into the back seat of her car. Dick couldn’t hear what she was saying (she looked like she was screaming something?), but seemed to get the gist of the conversation as he shut the car door, safely ensconcing himself and Ivy within while Harley jumped into the driver’s seat and floored it.

And not a moment too soon, he thought as he collapsed in the seat. The numbness had spread through his body and black spots were consuming his vision as he tried to cough the last of the gas and smoke out of his lungs.

As he looked out the window, Dick could see Batman freeing himself from the twisted metal shell that remained of the greenhouse, as his home burned to the ground. Finally, the blackness consumed his vision, and Dick became blissfully unaware of his world crumbling down around him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's up everyone! A few things:
> 
> 1\. I'm very sorry this chapter is so late, in the past two months I have: finished my final research project, graduated, gotten a job and moved into an apartment. And then, of course, there's that whole pandemic business that's going on. There's been so much happening that I've barely had a chance to think, let alone write, but I think I've gotten to a place where my life has mostly settled down :)
> 
> 2\. I know that we're like 5 months from american thanksgiving, but that's because I wrote this chapter during thanksgiving last year ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> 3\. Bruce does not know interact with children. I think he is *maybe* beginning to catch on to this. He will get better in the future, but for now he has to deal with the fact that he has emotionally scarred/terrified a child (if it makes anyone feel better, Alfred is also not impressed with Bruce right now).
> 
> 4\. This chapter's title comes from the song "Dirty Imbecile" by The Happy Fits, which I've basically been listening to on loop for the past week.
> 
> I think that covers everything for now. I appreciate you all so much! All the kudos and comments and bookmarks that you leave remind me that hey, there are other people out there who actually want to read what spilled out of my brain today, rad! 
> 
> Until next time, remember that you're all awesome and lovely, and stay healthy and safe!


	6. What a wonderful feeling to know that everything is fine

The first thing Dick noticed as he slowly awoke was that he was very comfortable. He felt like he was buried in many blankets, and the warm furry balls nestled into his sides led him to belief that Nathan and Zitka were in his bed with him. As he readjusted himself to reach for his pets, he noticed the second thing that came with his regaining of consciousness: immense pain. 

Dick decided to open his eyes to see just how badly he was injured and immediately regretted that decision. The light sent shooting pain through his head, sending him scrambling to throw an arm over his eyes. Which then caused him even MORE pain as his evidentially sprained wrist flared in discomfort. What the heck had happened to him? His memories were spotty, wasn’t it Thanksgiving? Shouldn’t he be feasting on amazing food right now with Ivy and Harley?

The injured boy grit his teeth and opened his eyes again. Hissing through the pain, he took stock of his injuries. His arms were bandaged past his elbows, and his head was heavy with further bandages. His left foot seemed to be immobilized as well, a cast going just past his ankle.

“What the shi—"

“DICK! Yer awake! And watch yer fuckin’ language.”

He was smothered in a hug as the bouncing form of Harley all but tackled him. “ACK—Harley, can’t breathe!”

“Whoops, sorry kiddo.” She immediately pulled back and sat next to him in the bed. As Dick took in her face, he realized that while she looked truly ecstatic (and thankfully free of injuries), her face was drawn with exhaustion.

“Harley, what happened?”

“You tell me, kid, I pulled up to yer house two days ago fer Thanksgivin’ dinner to find you half-conscious, draggin’ Ivy away from yer house, which was on fire, and the freaking Batman jumpin’ outa the remains!” Harley leaned in then, squinting her eyes at Dick. “Did Ives let ya in the kitchen?”

Dick burst out in laughter, even though it hurt to laugh. “What? No! She hasn’t let me in the kitchen since the last time I tried to help. Wait a second, did you say two days ago—”

“Yup. You two better be thankful for my psychiatry degree, cuz it gave me the medical know-how to figure out that Batman had come at ya guys with some sort’a poison meant for Ives. Trouble is, he didn’t expect you to have similar powers. It took longer to work on you, but yer smaller than Ivy so the effects lasted longer.”

At that, Dick sat straight up in his bed despite the pain throughout his body. “Wait, where is Ivy? Is she okay? Harley I don’t know if she was even breathing before you found us, what if—”

Harley gently pushed Dick back down into bed. “Okay, first of all kiddo, I’m gonna need you to take a deep breath and calm down a bit. You got real banged up, and ya have a bunch of stuff to heal. Secondly, Ivy is fine.” Dick released a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. 

“She woke up yesterday—and lemme tell ya, I just about had to sedate her so she wouldn’t try an’ kill batman on the spot when she saw you restin’ up. She also had a few cuts an’ burns, but nothin’ too crazy. The poison hit her pretty hard though, so she’s probably sleeping in my room.”

Speaking of… “Where are we Harley?” 

She grinned. “Why, the Chateau d’Quinzel, of course!” Dick looked around the room. It certainly wasn’t the nicest, but it had been made cozy in a way that only Harley could. The far wall looked like she’d splattered it with bright pink paint then flung multi-colored glitter at it. The room was lit by crisscrossing string lights and there were houseplants on nearly every surface. The overall aesthetic was chaotic but fun, which Dick supposed reflected Harley herself.

Harley smiled and stood up. “How about some food, kiddo?”

He nodded fervently, his stomach choosing that moment to growl loudly. Harley skipped off to her kitchen. She certainly wasn’t the level of cook of Ivy, but she did make a killer PB&J. She cut the crusts off and everything. 

Despite the boy’s hunger, when she brought the plate back to Dick, Harley found him snoozing away, his pets curled protectively into his side. She smiled and gently poked Nathan, who looked up at her with sleepy eyes. “Traitor, I thought I was yer favorite.” The dachshund responded by burrowing deeper into the blankets. Harley rolled her eyes and set down the sandwich, Dick could eat it if he woke up in the middle of the night; being on an IV for a few days made you hungry.

Time to check on her other favorite plant person then. In the room down the hall, Ivy was zonked out as well. Good, maybe Harley could catch a wink or two now. Yeesh, she loved her peeps to death, but it was certainly tiring to make sure they didn’t die on her.

She thought back to her conversation with Ivy the night before. Once Harley had calmed her down enough, Ivy demanded to see Dick. She was still weak from the poison; Harley had to support her, but they made it to Dick’s room.

Ivy sat down in a chair by his side, stroking the hair that peeked out of the bandages encircling his head. “This is my fault.”

“Oh? Did ya invite Batman to our Thanskgivin’ shindig? I’d expect him to have better manners than this.”

“Harley, no.”

“Well then, I’m not seein’ how this could be yer fault.”

“It’s not safe for him to live with me. If I had just taken him to the police in the first place and not let emotions get in the way of things—"

“Then he’d be in the orphanage system, neglected, not workin’ through his issues, and probably getting’ a daily roughin’ up from the olda kids. I get where yer comin’ from Ives, I really do. But even including this snafu with Batsy, Dick is in a better place mentally and physically than we could ever hope he’d be in the system. With you an’ me, he’s got two ladies who love ‘im to pieces, and who’ll do everything in their power to make sure he’s as healthy and happy as can be, given his situation.”

Ivy didn’t respond immediately. After a moment, she spoke. “He’ll go after Dick again, won’t he?”

“Probably, I mean from his perspective, two evil ladies kidnapped a poor, defenseless child. If we want him to stay safe and with us, then in my humble opinion, we’ll need to train ‘im to protect himself. It was sheer luck that you two escaped last night. He needs to have a fighting chance if Batman comes after ‘im when we’re not around.”

“You’re right.”

“Wait, I am?” Harley responded in surprise. Her plan had the same flavor as some of her crazier ideas, and those usually had a 50% success rate.

Ivy nodded. “When Dick wakes up, I’m going to give him the option to leave us and go to an orphanage, we can take him to one out of town that isn’t so dangerous.” Harley began to protest but Ivy held up a hand so she could continue. “He deserves that choice, Harles. He now knows that it’s dangerous living with us. Of course, I don’t want him to leave, but if he wants to, then we’re going to support him. Alright?”

Harley sighed. “Fine. Please tell me there’s a plan B?”

“If he wants to stay, we train him. The whole nine yards, if he stays then he needs to be able to protect himself—one day it might not be just Batman going after him. You train him in self-defense—your backgrounds are similar enough that I think your fighting style would suit him well. I help him develop his powers. This way, he can be as safe and prepared as possible.” Ivy finally looked from her pseudo-son to her best friend, uncertainty and some measure of fear written in her eyes. “Does that sound okay?”

Harley pumped her fist in the air. “Hell yeah! It’s kinda amazing how this scrawny kiddo wormed his way into your green heart. I mean, this is you we’re talkin’ about! A misanthrope who prefers plants to humans and used to barf around people!”

“I know, I know.” Ivy smiled. “I honestly don’t know what it is about him, but I’m glad there’s at least one other human besides you who’s not a piece of flaming garbage, and doesn’t think that we’re flaming garbage.”

Harley sighed contentedly. “Gives ya hope for the future, don’t it?”

They didn’t talk much after that, just basking in the comfort of being alive and together.

* * *

Ivy woke up on the morning four days after the whole fiasco with Batman, and it was the first time in four days that she didn’t feel like she was going to vomit if she moved. Harley was curled into her side, deep in sleep and breathing slowly. Ivy would never tell her, but when Harley slept, sometimes her longer bangs tickled her nose making her wrinkle it. She was utterly adorable.

It was good that she was finally getting a chance to sleep; between herself and Dick, Harley had had her hands full nursing them back to health. She both needed and deserved a chance to rest. Ivy nestled into the comforter, willing this moment to last forever. The watery sunlight filtering in through the old factory windows of Harley’s hideout led her to believe it was sometime around 7 in the morning.

Beside her, Harley stirred. “‘S it mornin’ already?”

“Shhh, sleep a little longer. We don’t have anywhere to be.”

“M‘kay,” she rolled onto her back and began gently snoring. Several minutes passed, during which she watched her friend sleep in peace. Ivy stretched and sat up. She wanted a cup of tea, and Harley would probably want some coffee once she was up. Ivy began to make her way to the kitchen area—and very nearly tripped over Dick, who seemed to be army crawling in the same direction. 

“Dick! What are you doing?” she kneeled next to him and helped him sit against the wall.

“Ivy!” Dick’s face lit up with a smile brighter than the sun. “I’m really glad you’re okay. I was so worried about you!”

“I know hun, me too. So you want to tell me what you’re doing on the floor?”

“Oh, I was looking for some food, but Harley didn’t leave me any crutches, and with my wrist sprained I can’t walk on my hands right now, so this seemed like the next best option.”

“Of course,” Ivy replied wryly. The fact that Dick wasn’t left crutches was by design. They had assumed it would deter Dick from trying to leave his bed while he healed—how silly of them. “How does some tea sound?”

She helped him stand up and together they hobbled to the kitchen. Ivy started heating some water and threw some bread in the toaster for good measure, eyeing the pile of dishes that had built up. She was stalling, she knew this; she didn’t want to start the conversation that could take her sprout away. However, even from their few short months together, she already loved Dick more than many things in this cruel world, and therefore he deserved the choice that this conversation would give him.

She set the mug of tea in front of him, peppermint tea with milk and two teaspoons of sugar, just how he liked it. “Sprout… we need to talk.”

He took a sip and leveled her with a serious look. “Let me take a wild guess: you’re worried about it being too dangerous for me living with you and Harley, so you want to send me away.”

Ivy paused in surprise. Dick often was more perceptive than he let on—it was a good skill to have, it reminded her of Harley. “…yes. Well, no. What I mean is, we don’t want you to leave—I don’t want you to leave, but you need to know that living with us is dangerous, Dick. I can’t promise you that if you were to stay with us that you wouldn’t get injured again. So if you don’t want to live with us anymore, we completely understand. We can take you to a good orphanage out of Gotham, one where you’ll be taken care of, you’ll be safe, and a- adopted—”

“Nope.” He sipped his tea serenely and smiled at Ivy as though they were talking about the weather.

At Dick’s response, Ivy’s heart leapt with joy while her brain kicked it into the closet. “Dick, you’ve got to think about this.”

“I have, Ivy. I know it’s not the safest living with you, but I’m also happy. Given my situation, it’s kinda weird to say it, but I am. And I know I wouldn’t be anywhere near as happy without you guys. Plus…” He paused here, as if unsure if he should say what he wanted to. “I’ve already got two pretty great adoptive moms as it is.”

And that was it. That was the moment Pamela Isely’s heart shattered into a million pieces with the love she felt for her boy, and she knew then and there that she’d do anything for him as long as she could. Ivy wrapped him in the tightest hug possible without hurting him and he immediately returned it. She whispered in his ear. “Sprout, I know I will never be able to compare to your real mom, but if I can be anything like her for you, I’ll be happy. And for the record, I would be pretty thrilled to have you for a son, who wouldn’t be?” He giggled as she poked his belly. “My brave young man, facing down Batman all by yourself and saving me too? You’re my hero.”

They stayed there hugging for a few more moments before Ivy broke the embrace. She busied herself making the coffee for Harley, feeling the happiest she had in days.

“Oh that reminds me! Speaking of Batman…” Dick turned to face her as she bustled around the kitchen. “There was something he was saying to me before you found us the other night. Ivy, from how he was talking to me… I don’t think my parents’ deaths were an accident.”

That made her pause. “Wait, what? I read in the news article about it that the police hadn’t ruled out a homicide, but they never said explicitly that it was…”

He nodded. “He said that he was worried Zucco had gotten to me too. Do you think that’s the name of the person who killed them? Or is it a group of people?”

She sat down across from him at the table, a troubled look on her face. “I don’t know hun, it’s not a name I’ve ever come across. Maybe they’re part of one of the gangs in Gotham? Harley and I can ask around…” She paused here, as though she was trying to figure out how best to respond. In the end she leaned across the table and grasped Dick’s unbandaged hand in hers. “I’m so sorry, sprout.”

He didn’t have to ask what she was sorry for. Each time Dick felt that he was starting to come to terms with the deaths of his parents—who he still could only barely remember—he learned something new that tipped his world view back on its head. It was exhausting and infuriating. If this Zucco person really was responsible for his parents’ demise, then he was also responsible for destroying Dick’s life.

He looked Ivy straight in the eyes through his watery vision. “Ivy, I don’t want this person to ever be able to hurt anyone else.”

She closed her eyes, steeling herself for this conversation. Ivy generally tried to operate without killing too many people—but that didn’t mean she was inexperienced in the area of revenge. She opened her eyes and fixed Dick's sapphire gaze with her emerald one. “Okay. But if we do this, we do this together. No running off on your own with some vendetta, because that will get you killed. Do you understand?”

He nodded once with shining eyes.

“This won’t be a short game, either—odds are good that it’ll take months, if not years, to find a person that doesn’t want to be found. In that time though, Harley and I can train you. We already were planning to teach you some self-defense and to use your powers better, because if Batman tried to get you once, he’ll probably try again. You have to be committed. Can you do that?”

He nodded again, now with a small smile on his lips. “Does this mean that I’ll get to help you and Harley eventually?”

Ivy pursed her lips. “Perhaps. But only once we decided you’re ready and only in a limited capacity, you hear me? You are still a child, and we won’t have you getting unnecessarily hurt.”

“I can do that,” Dick grinned at her.

She smiled back. “Well then, Richard Grayson, I would say that we have a plan.”

* * *

Meanwhile, across the harbor and on the opposite side of Gotham, a man sat tending to his wounds after a night of fighting crime in the city he protected. His butler stood near by, a reproachful look plastered on his face.

“Still no sign of the boy then, I assume?”

“None,” the hulking man grunted.

“At the risk of overstepping, sir, might I point out that you appear to be running yourself ragged?”

He rubbed his face angrily. “What do you expect me to do, Alfred? It’s been four days now, and they’re still nowhere to be found. Every day that Richard is in their hands is another day that Ivy can be experimenting on him.”

“I would like to reiterate my questioning, sir: do you have any proof of this alleged experimentation?”

Bruce sighed in exasperation and unwound the bandages surrounding his forearm. It was less of an angry red by now, more of a shiny pink splotch. It could be anything from a patch of eczema to a burn from a spilled cup of coffee. But for those who knew what they were looking at, the mark was clear: a small handprint, fingers splayed across the skin. It wouldn’t scar horribly, but the skin was bound to be slightly darker in the tell-tale sign of a past burn. “I think this is pretty clear proof.”

“You know as well as I do, that there are a multitude of ways that one may receive superhuman abilities. Is it not possible that young Richard had these abilities to begin with, or received them in an accident? As a detective, I think you mustn’t dispose of these possibilities until you have more concrete evidence.”

The stare-down between the two men lasted all of five seconds before the younger broke it. “Fine, it’s possible that this isn’t the result of experimentation, but I would say that it’s probable at the very least. Either way, I need to get him away from Ivy and Harley.”

Alfred was silent for a moment before saying quietly, “Do you?”

Bruce turned in his chair to face him. “What do you mean by that? Of course I need to get him from them, that’s no place for a child to be.”

Alfred sighed and pulled up the villain reports on the computer. “Usually Poison Ivy is in your top five for most active villains. Harley Quinn as well. In the past month, they haven’t even been in your top ten. And the crimes they did commit, resulted in only property damage—no threat to human life. Have you considered that the boy might be having a beneficial influence on them?” Bruce was silent, but read through the file.

“Furthermore, you found out where they were located from information from a gymnastics studio, yes?”  
Bruce grunted in what Alfred took as affirmation.

“That would imply that they signed Richard up for gymnastics lessons. That doesn’t seem like an inherently evil action to me. Not to mention, from your description of your encounter, the boy sounds like he is properly terrified of Batman now. Unfortunately, you may have blown your chances of getting the boy to trust you.” Bruce scowled and looked like he was about to respond but Alfred cut him off. “That does not, however, mean that Bruce Wayne has blown his chances.”

Bruce leaned back and let out a long sigh. “What do you suggest I do Alfred? Just walk up to him on the street? ‘Hello lad, my name is Bruce Wayne, you may know me as one of the billionaires of Gotham. Tell me, are the super villainesses that you live with mistreating you in anyway?’ Something tells me that won’t work.”

Alfred chuckled and began making his way to the staircase that led to the manor. “Oh, I am certain that you will come up with something, sir, you have a very creative mind. You are, after all, the one who decided that the best way to deal with crime in Gotham was to dress as a bat and terrify the crime away.”

Bruce begrudgingly smirked and turned back to his keyboard to devise a plan. “Creative my ass,” he muttered.

“Language, Master Bruce.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Sorry for not updating for *checks watch* four months... 😬 I know, I've been bad with updating but I'll try to be better. On the bright side, with this chapter posted that completes phase one of this story! Phase two will start off next chapter with a certain character that some of you have been anticipating 😉 The song for this chapter title is "Thank You" by Bombadil, it's one of those songs you can just chill out to, definitely one of my faves.  
> I think that's it for now, thank you for your continuing kudos and comments, I love to read through them, they always make my day. Until next time (hopefully a much shorter wait if I can kick myself to not spend my limited amount of free time on TikTok?), stay healthy!


	7. Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

Try as Dick might (and believe him, he did), Ivy and Harley didn’t allow him to do anything active until his leg was completely healed. By the end of the first week, Dick was ready to take his chances with a dull butter knife cutting off the cast, rather than be subjected to five more weeks of torture. Thankfully Ivy stepped in before he was forced to resort to that. She poked her head into the kitchen, where he sat grumpily reading a book (after his most recent attempt at walking around on his hands was foiled).

“Hey sprout, how would you like a change of scenery?”

“Please. Free me from my imprisonment, Ivy.”

She threw her head back as she laughed. “Don’t be so dramatic Dick, you should be glad that we’ve even let you leave your room with your leg like that.”

He muttered a response while he thumped along behind Ivy on his crutches. “It’s not my fault stupid Batman had to blow up our party. He wasn’t even invited. Rude, if you ask me.”

Ivy chuckled but said nothing as they continued on. Dick was allowed to go wherever he wanted in the warehouse (unless you included Harley’s “You must never enter the west wing of the castle!”), but it was a vast building with many rooms left to explore. They made it to the southwestern corner of the building, where Ivy held open a door with a smile. When Dick saw what was within, he quickly grew a smile of his own to match Ivy’s.

It was a greenhouse. Not nearly as large as the one they used to have, but it was still filled with as many plants as would fit, and with the humidity in the air, it was almost like stepping into a rain forest in the concrete jungle of Gotham. It was only a week since their abrupt move, but Dick was already missing plant life. Ivy pulled out a chair at a tiny metal table for him to sit down and rest his leg. “This is amazing, Ivy!”

“It really is,” she mused, looking around the room. “But, that’s not our only reason for being here.” She set a potted plant in front of Dick on the table. It was long and trailing, with glossy heart-shaped leaves in a variety of shades of green; he’d seen this in one of his books, what was it called? Pogos? Pothus?

“Just because you have to take it easy on your leg, doesn’t mean we can’t start training your powers.”

Dick sucked in a breath. “ _Awesome_. But uh, Ivy, all my powers do is melt stuff. What good is a plant gonna do in training that? I don’t want to melt the plant.”

“Oh no, no, you don’t have to melt the plant. While it’s true that your powers have manifested primarily in the production of acids, they’re still plant based in nature, which gives you a connection with nature that most people lack. Take myself, for example. My main power is that I can produce chemicals that make people more willing to do what I want, however after training myself, I found that I could, in a way, communicate with the plants around me, and could often convince them to help me out. I think that given enough time and practice, you’ll be able to do this too.”

“Woah.”

She nodded with enthusiasm. “So what I have here, is a simple pothos. You’ll find that some plants are easier to work with than others—cacti for example, are very stubborn plants. However, they are also very territorial. If you can communicate that they are being threatened by a common enemy, then they’ll often help you out. Now this pothos, you could consider it to be the labradoodle of plants. Playful, smart, and quick to pick up on cues from others. I know,” Ivy said at the look Dick gave her, “It’s… uncommon to describe plants like they’re dogs, but there is far more to vegetation than we give it credit for. Think of it this way: plants, or at least their ancestors, have been around pretty much as long as there’s been life on earth. Just as we have grown more complex over time, so have they.”

Dick cocked his head while he thought over her words. “I guess that makes sense. So do your—our—powers work on, like, ocean plants too, then?”

Ivy smiled. “Excellent question! They do, however genetically, ocean plants split off from land plants a long time ago; in fact, they were the first ancestors of plants. When working with ocean plants, it’s almost like… a different language. Like training a cat versus a dog. It absolutely can be done, but you have to train it in a different way. I’ll see if I can find some kelp in the harbor at some point for you to play around with. But for now, let’s focus on the pothos.”

She turned towards the plant now and Dick mirrored her actions, staring intently at the small mound of vines and leaves. Ivy stroked a leave with one finger. It seemed to shiver, and then ever so gently, it wrapped one of its vines around her finger. She wiggled the fingers on the other hand, and the remaining vines began braiding themselves.

Dick watched in awe as Ivy smiled. “Is it… showing off?”

Her smile turned to a grin as Ivy looked to Dick. “I told you they were playful.”

“…can I try?”

“Absolutely, that’s why we’re here.”

She untangled her finger and the pothos unbraided itself. “First close your eyes. You need to start by trying to sense the life around you.” Dick did as she instructed, though admittedly doubtful that he’d be able to do anything. Unbidden, the scene from Star Wars where Obi-wan tells Luke to fend off the blaster droid with his eyes closed sprang to mind ( _A New Hope_ had been their most recent movie night).

“Imagine all the plants around you. All living things have a tiny spark of life, and our powers let us connect to the spark that lives in vegetation.”

Dick followed along with her words and imagined spots of light all around him. He thought specifically about the pothos in front of them, straining to find that spark that Ivy spoke of. A few moments went by without anything happening. Just as Dick was about to ask if he was doing something wrong, however, something snapped. It was like a wall of ice that had been slowly melting suddenly shattered, and now he could see beyond it.

It wasn’t seeing, per say, but more like sensing. All around him, Dick could feel the shapes that were the plants, like there were strings connecting him to each and every leaf. He could feel differences in the plants too—some were…dimmer, for lack of a better word, while others glowed with energy. The brightest spot of all was right in front of him, and Dick didn’t even realize he had reached out until his hand hit Ivy’s shoulder. His eyes snapped open and found Ivy’s; she was beaming at him.

“Fantastic work. Now, focus on the pothos. How does its energy feel? Can you connect to it?”

Dick closed his eyes once more and found the small plant in his mind’s eye. It was almost drowned out by the larger plants around them. He reached out a hand to touch its leaves and immediately it’s presence exploded into view. Dick gasped as a leaf began to wrap itself around his finger, just as it had done earlier for Ivy. When he opened his eyes, there was only one way to describe what he saw: the plant was happily swaying back and forth—it was like a cat, purring with pleasure.

Dick collapsed back in his chair, suddenly drained. He wordlessly accepted a granola bar from Ivy, gaze still trained on the plant.

“How does it _do_ that?”

“I can’t give you a 100% certain answer, but my theory is that our powers allow the plants to piggyback on the energy we have as far more complex beings. That’s why it takes so much out of you to interact with the plants—you’re untrained, so you don’t have the stamina to sustain much activity. But if you practice, then it won’t be long before you start getting to my level.” Ivy waved her hand lightly through the air, and in an arc around the pair, the plants all swayed as if moved by an invisible breeze.

“ _Woah_.” This opened up a whole new aspect to his powers (which were already flippin’ awesome to begin with) that he could experiment with, even if he was strictly on a no-physical-activity schedule for the next few weeks. Speaking of his powers, an acrid smell disturbed the air. Dick yelped as he looked down to his hand, which now held the remains of the granola bar wrapper in the form of a smoking goopy mess. “Ewwww…”

“Here.” Ivy passed him a rag that cleaned the worst of the mess off his hands. “That’s something else that would be good to work on, making sure your powers don’t slip away from your control.”

“I know,” Dick responded dejectedly. “I don’t even realize, I just get excited about something random, and stuff starts melting.”

Ivy patted his arm. “Don’t worry, like all things, it just takes practice. You’ll get there eventually.”

“Can I bring the pothos back to my room so I can practice with it?”

“Of course.” Ivy helped Dick stand and carried the plant for him as they made their way back into the inner sanctum of the warehouse. “Just make sure you keep it away from Zitka and Nathan.”

With a pang Ivy realized that Dick’s pets were, in a way, the closest thing he had to friends. “Sprout, do you ever get lonely?”

He cocked his head, thinking over her words. “I guess… I think at the circus there were always lots of people around, so it’s different from that. But I mean, I have you and Harley, and Nathan and Zitka, and then there are books, so it’s not so bad.”

Ivy nodded. That was about the answer she had expected. As she helped Dick climb into his bed to rest, fluffing the pillows under his leg, she voiced an idea that had been bouncing around her head the past few days. “Once you’re all healed, maybe we can sign you up for some classes with other kids your age at the library? Or something else like that? It’s important to have friends, and you know Harley and I don’t want you to be lonely.”

Dick smiled at the idea. “Alright! I like meeting new people.”

“I know, sprout. Now why don’t you try to get some rest.”

He rolled his eyes. “It’s like three pm, Ivy, I’m not tired.”

“Uh-huh. Well, I’ll be in the kitchen if you need anything.”

She left the room. Despite Dick’s assurances, when Ivy poked her head in thirty minutes later to check on him, sure enough, he was passed out cold with Zitka and Nathan nestled into his sides.

* * *

Dick was sent flying through the air, not for the first time that afternoon, as a well-placed kick to his chest sent him stumbling backwards onto the blue mat. Harley extended a hand to help him up and returned back to her spot on the other side of the mat. She grinned at him. “Close, but no cigar kiddo. Try again.”

By now Dick’s ankle and other various injuries were healed enough that Harley could begin teaching him her particular style of fighting. It matched well with Dick’s natural athleticism from the circus. As he learned soon after the move to Harley’s Hideout, she had spent much of her youth competing (and excelling) in gymnastics. Her hideout, an abandoned warehouse in Blüdhaven, had been converted to feature two main sections: the downstairs, which had bedrooms, a kitchen, a bathroom, and a plant room, and then the second floor. When Dick had first hobbled up on his crutches while exploring, he thought he had accidentally walked into a gymnastics studio, but no—Harley liked to keep her skills sharp, and that had apparently warranted getting all the equipment that one might find at a mid-sized successful gymnastics gym. There was even a foam pit—Dick was _delighted_ to find that it was outfitted with a trapeze.

The skills she learned in her childhood translated very well to fighting, Harley explained during their first lesson, and she suspected that would be the case for Dick too. By the end of that lesson it was very evident that her hunch was spot on. Dick shook his head to clear his musings and returned her grin. He now had two weeks of training under his belt and was improving every day. The premise of today’s exercise was simple: Harley stood on side of the mat, Dick on the other—all he had to do was get past her to the other side of the mat. Simple right? That’s what Dick thought when they began—three hours ago. He still hadn’t made it passed her once.

_This time,_ he thought, _this time I’ll make it._ What could he do that he hadn’t tried yet? What advantages did he have that he could use against Harley? Dick stretched his arms as an excuse to get a look around the room, spying for anything that could give him an edge. And he found something—it was a completely crazy idea—but regardless he was going to give it a shot. Dick was careful to keep his smile off his face. Harley was good at picking up cues like that.

Dick crouched for a moment, and then sprinted for the open space to the right of Harley. At the last moment, he changed direction and barreled straight towards her. She had clearly anticipated his action. Shifting her position to judo flip him over her shoulder, Harley apparently did _not_ expect Dick to use that to his advantage. Vaulting off her shoulders, the momentum rocketed him up in the air towards his true target: the rafters. He didn’t try to hide his grin anymore as he peered down to see the look of pure astonishment on Harley’s face. Practiced steps carried him nimbly across the rafters, even as Harley leapt to follow him up. Too late. It was with glee that just as Harley made it up, Dick hopped down to the ground— safely on the far side of the mat. She grinned down at him.

“Great use of your surroundings Dick! Bein’ situationally aware can mean the difference between life an’ death sometimes.” She gracefully flipped back to the ground just as Ivy walked up the stairs.

“Are you two just about finished?” She threw them their water bottles. “We have company coming.”

Dick raised an eyebrow. “We do? Who?”

“I’ll give you a hint: moonlights in a cat suit, bit of a kleptomaniac, never uses the front door…”

“Selina!”

“Bingo, kiddo. Let’s get cleaned up, she’ll be here in an hour.”

The warehouse had one bathroom and Harley usually hogged the water (she liked to sing in the shower) so Dick got to go first. After getting dressed and throwing on a sweatshirt, he walked over to Ivy who was preparing dinner.

“Hey Ivy, can I go to the corner store?”

She pursed her lips in thought. He had started venturing out and exploring the surrounding area, but it was under fairly tight parameters. Ivy had explained soon after their move to Blüdhaven the high crime rates and danger that came with the city. Dick had gone out a few times with either her or Harley by now, but never by himself. He just wanted to get a soda, but if he was being honest, he also wanted to prove that he could go out on his own. He was almost thirteen, that had to count for something, right?

Ivy wiped her hands off on a towel. “Alright, but under a few conditions. Take your phone with you, and pepper spray. And remember to avoid security cameras. Wear your gloves, but if you get in any trouble, do whatever you can to get out of it, okay? And be back within 20 minutes, or Harley and I will assume you’ve been kidnapped and come to rescue you.”

Dick grinned. “Got it, thanks Ivy!”

The walk to the corner store was uneventful. The streets were filled with the usual crowd of people walking home from a long day of work, bundled up against the cold. They didn’t pay Dick any attention, and he kept his hood up the whole time. The corner store was about a five-minute walk from the warehouse, it was only three blocks away.

Dick was greeted by the little old lady behind the counter upon entering. The store was owned by a kind elderly couple, and either the husband or the wife was always working the counter whenever Dick came in. He quickly got what he came for: a blue raspberry slushy and a Twix bar, just about as much sugar as five dollars could buy. He purchased his goods from the nice old lady and soon enough was back on his way.

_Hah_ , Dick thought as he chewed his candy bar, _I’ll be back with eight minutes to spare at this pace_. Of course, that was when he heard the clanging in the alley he was passing. Immediately on guard, he peered in— _and found the freaking Batmobile facing him_. Dick panicked. Not good, very not good, where was Batman now? Was he hiding in the shadows, waiting to capture Dick when he least expected it? He was just about to sprint back to the warehouse, when he heard a tiny grunt from behind the armored vehicle.

Dick chewed his lip, debating. He really should get the hell out of here, but at the same time, that grunt had come from someone that definitely wasn’t Batman, it sounded more like a kid. In the end his curiosity won out. Carefully, he crept past the Batmobile, regarding it like a lit stick of dynamite. What he found kneeling next to the car was certainly not what he had expected.

Crouching there, pile of tires next to him and tire iron in his hands was a tiny kid—and he was trying to take the fourth wheel off.

“Woah, are you stealing the tires from the Batmobile? That’s rad, dude!”

The kid jumped when Dick started speaking and viewed him with narrowed eyes. “…thanks. Now go away, before Bats shows up.”

Dick promptly ignored that suggestion. “You’re pretty close, is that last tire not coming off?”

The kid answered by putting all his weight into twisting the tire iron; it wasn’t budging.

“Here, let me try.”

The kid scowled but sat back on his heels. He had a smudge of oil on his nose and messy black hair. “What are _you_ gonna be able to do that I can’t?”

“Well for starters, get onto the ‘You have to be this tall to ride’ rollercoasters at the fair, but also this.” Dick looked around to make sure no one else was near, before setting his fingers on the bolts of the tire. He closed his eyes and focused, and quickly the metal began to feel warm under his fingers. Grinning, he saw that the metal now looked like it had been sitting out in the rain for years. He held his hand out for the tire iron, and the kid passed it over wordlessly, watching with round eyes. Dick barely had to torque it before the bolts snapped off. Within seconds, the last tire was off. He grabbed a tire in each hand before turning to the kid.

“Now let’s get out of here before Batman shows up. You wanna come over to my place? My guardian is a great cook.”

The kid followed his lead with the tires, and they were soon hurrying down the backstreets that were devoid of cameras to get back to the warehouse. He still looked suspicious. “Guardian? You don’t live in a foster home, do you?”

“Oh no, my guardians kind of took me in after I was… orphaned. It’s a long story. Trust me, they’re nice people.”

“Okay, good. I’ve run away from enough foster homes, and I ain’t goin’ back.”

Dick noticed with a smile that the kid talked like Harley, with the same Gotham accent that he was beginning to be able to recognize. “Fair enough, they won’t send you anywhere like that. Oh hey, do you want the other half of my candy bar? And what’s your name?”

The kid paused for a moment, as if deciding whether or not he could trust this admittedly interesting stranger, before grabbing the offered candy like it would disappear. “Jason. Jason Todd.”

* * *

The sound of the front door opening and shutting echoed through the warehouse just as Ivy was ready to ignore Harley and Selina’s placations and search the streets for Dick.

“Ivyyyyy, I’m home!”

She stomped around the corner, ready to give a full talking-to. “Richard Grayson, you are five minutes late! What did I tell you about being back within 20 min—” Ivy paused once her pseudo-son came into view. He wasn’t alone, which Harley and Selina also found as they rounded the corner to join their friend. Dick had with him a boy who couldn’t have been older than ten; he was munching on a candy bar while scowling at everything suspiciously.

“Hey Ivy, I made a friend! His name is Jason. He was stealing the tires off the Batmobile.”

Dick finished stacking up the tires next to the front door.

“I— he _what_ —!?!”

“Excellent job boys!” Selina cut in. Her eyes sparkled. “Jason, right? Nicely done, stealing Batman’s tires! Not everyone can do that you know, that’s a real feat. If you want to sell these to get some cash, I know some buyers in the black market that would love to have something like this.”

He squinted at her. “What’s the catch, lady?”

“No catch, just rewarding good work where I see it.”

Jason started to grin as Selina and Harley engaged him in conversation. Ivy meanwhile, fixed Dick with her trademark young-man-you-are-grounded-till-the-climate-stops-warming look as she said, “Dick, a word, please.”

Once they were both in the kitchen she rubbed her temples. “Please tell me you didn’t help him steal the tires.”

“Of course not. Only the last one, he couldn’t get it loose.” Dick had the gall to smile at her as if he had done nothing wrong.

“And why, pray tell, did you decide to commit your first act of larceny tonight? Given that Batman is currently on the hunt for you? Did it not occur to you that this might put you in danger?”

Dick shrugged. “You said that I should try to make friends.” At the look of outrage on Ivy’s face, he quickly backtracked. “Plus, look at Jason. He’s clearly starving, I don’t think he has a home.”

Ivy sighed. “Oh Dick…”

“He can stay with me in my room! There’s plenty of space, we could even fit bunk beds in there.”

“Sprout, I hate to say this, but you know we can’t just adopt every kid off the streets…”

“Please, Ivy? Just for a few nights? Where else is he gonna go?” And then, Dick fixed her with his true superpower: the puppy dog eyes. _Damn it_.

“Fine. But you are responsible for him, you hear?”

“Of course! We’re bros.”

He smiled innocently and followed Ivy back out to the hallway, where her two best friends were cooing over this child. Dick fist-bumped Jason (they only met 15 minutes ago, how was it possible for them to _already_ be this close?). Ivy still had her reservations; she’d keep a close eye on the kid, but she couldn’t deny that she _had_ told Dick to make some friends.

“Well, Jason we’re just about to have dinner if you’d like to join us.”

“Hell yeah, thanks miss!”

Ivy smiled, this boy was definitely a Gotham kid. “You can call me Ivy, my friends are Selina and Harley.”

Although she didn’t know it at the time, her family, it seemed, had just gained another member.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well would you look at the time, that's not four and a half months that have passed since I last posted a chapter, is it...? Yeah... sorry guys. I got a job (finally) mid-October and have been pulling a lot of overtime since, which, while helpful for paying off student loans, has left me with little time to think, let alone write. But it IS getting better now that I've settled into the job better! Rest assured that I'm still working on BITH (Birds in the Heather, I realize it looks like I'm misspelling bitch ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯), though updates will probably still be sporadic. I can't tell you how much I appreciate you all continuing to leave kudos and write comments! It reminds me that people actually like this, which--WOW--and it makes my day every time :)  
> Oh yeah, chapter title--song is of the same name by Daft Punk, and it slaps. It's only my exercise playlist and always gets me pumped.  
> Until next time, thank you for reading, and I hope everyone is staying healthy!


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